(JustPatriots.com)- The U.S. Supreme Court decided to take up a case Monday that challenges the legal protections large computer corporations enjoy concerning user-generated content, perhaps ushering in a new age of online control of free speech.
Reynaldo Gonzalez et al. v. Google LLC is a case where the issue of whether internet companies provide “target suggestions” is being heard.
The lawsuit claims that YouTube encouraged and enabled Nohemi Gonzalez’s death. Gonzalez, a 23-year-old American, was one of 130 people killed and more than a hundred injured in the 2015 ISIS attacks in Paris.
Gonzalez’s family filed a lawsuit against Google, the owner of YouTube, claiming that the platform’s algorithms permitted and encouraged ISIS-related terrorism by presenting users with “hundreds of radicalizing videos encouraging violence and recruiting prospective sympathizers.”
Google requested that the lawsuit be dismissed after arguing that the claims were time-barred under Section 230.
After the judge dismissed the case, the family decided to appeal to the country’s highest court.
The Communications Decency Act contains a provision known as Section 230 that states that “no provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider,” which is a controversial subject. The Gonzalez case touches on this provision.
Democrats and Republicans have criticized the law, saying it gives social media corporations too much power and favors one party over the other regarding banning or promoting content.
Tech companies and advocacy groups have spoken out in favor of the rule, arguing that the internet would become a “content quagmire.”
