Partisanship has made the gridlock worse. Republicans, some of whom have accused Facebook, Twitter and other sites of censoring them, have pressured the platforms to allow more content. By contrast, Democrats have said the platforms should remove more content, such as health misinformation.
The Supreme Court case challenging Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act is likely to have many ripple effects. While newspapers and magazines can be sued for what they publish, Section 230 protects online platforms from lawsuits for most content posted by their users. It also protects platforms from lawsuits when they remove posts.
For years, judges have cited the law when dismissing claims against Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, ensuring the companies don’t take on new legal liability with every status update, post and viral video. Critics said the law was a get-out-of-jail-free card for tech giants.
“If they have no liability in the background for any of the damages that are facilitated, they basically have a mandate to be as reckless as possible,” said Mary Anne Franks, a University of Miami law professor.
The Supreme Court previously refused to hear several cases challenging the statute. In 2020, the court rejected a lawsuit by the families of people killed in terrorist attacks that said Facebook was responsible for promoting extremist content. In 2019, the court refused to hear the case of a man who said his ex-boyfriend sent people to harass him using the dating app Grindr. The man sued the app, saying it had a faulty product.
But on February 21, the court plans to hear the case of González v. Google, which was presented by the family of an American killed in Paris during an attack by followers of the Islamic State. In their lawsuit, the family said Section 230 should not protect YouTube from claims that the video site supported terrorism when its algorithms recommended Islamic State videos to users. The lawsuit argues that the recommendations can count as their own form of content produced by the platform, removing them from Section 230 protection.
A day later, the court plans to consider a second case, Twitter v. Taamneh. This is a related question about when platforms are legally responsible for supporting terrorism under federal law.