A Close Look at Section 230 of the U.S. Communications Decency Act of 1996

• Section 230 serves as a “safe harbour” or “liability shield” for social media platforms and users from any third-party content.
• It protects users and social media platforms from legal liabilities for online information provided by third parties.
• Google's lawyer in a landmark case referred to section 230 as the “26 words that created the internet”.
• This section also safeguards companies from various lawsuits filed against them by a user for content posted by another user.
• It also permits service providers to moderate and remove content that violates their guidelines, such as obscene content.
• The law allows platforms to remove content, provided it's done in good faith.

The Two Lawsuits before the US Supreme Court: The petitioners are suing Google for its algorithmic recommendation of ISIS videos to users. They argue that Youtube, a video hosting platform, has indirectly supported ISIS in propagating terrorism, which is actionable under US anti-terrorism law.

How could changes in the law transform the internet?

• In January 2023, a coalition of tech companies, users, and rights groups approached SCOTUS with an amicus curiae, urging the court to keep section 230 as it is.
• Twitter, in its filing, argued that the vast volume of data generated daily necessitates section 230, enabling platforms to moderate content and provide users with the most relevant information.
• Reddit, in its filing, warned that the petitioner's theory could erode the immunity granted by section 230 and hinder content moderation.
• Microsoft contended that tweaking section 230 could impact the algorithm used in Github, an open-source software-building platform.
• Evan Greer, a digital rights activist, argued that altering section 230 could lead to the suppression of socially and politically significant information shared by third parties like minority rights groups.

The Court's Perspective:

• In the initial hearing, SCOTUS expressed caution about modifying section 230, which provides immunity. The court suggested that the Youtube algorithm is simply a modern version of curating content a person might be interested in, a practice that has been around for a long time.
• The court also mentioned that algorithms are ubiquitous, from Google search to Youtube or Twitter, and questioned whether accepting the Gonzalez family's case would render section 230 obsolete.
• A separate filing by the statute's authors stated that the law's purpose was to provide immunity to the burgeoning internet and to establish a technologically neutral immunity clause to protect tech companies from liability for imperfect algorithms.