- Section 230 is going before the Supreme Court: Are content recommendations covered like moderation? A loss for Google would be an opportunity for Congress to protect essential rights.
- Section 230 Genesis: The law gives internet platforms legal immunity for almost all third-party content hosted on their sites.
- Section 230 Implementation: There is widespread support in Congress for overhauling Section 230, but legislative efforts to do so have stalled amid partisan disagreements.
- Gonzalez v. Google: The case was brought by the family of an American college student alleging that YouTube failed to take down some ISIS terrorist videos and even recommended them to users.
- The Position on the Stack Matters for Moderation: At the top of the stack are the service providers that people publish to directly, with absolute discretion in their moderation policies, while ISPs are about access with no right to be heard.
- Algorithmic Timelines and Recommendation Engines: The question in Gonzalez v. Google is whether platforms are liable for their recommendations. A win for Gonzalez would be a disaster for the way current platforms work.
- Congressional Action: If Gonzalez wins the case, there should be no liability for posting a link and infrastructure companies should be given immunity to be content neutral.
- The First Amendment and U.S. Speech Controls: Much of the discussion around moderation of content forgets that the First Amendment explicitly denies Congress any role in determining what is moderated and what is not.
Published February 24, 2023
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