Google and Twitter win: Supreme Court takes a pass on Section 230
The Supreme Court took a pass on Section 230 Thursday.
In two closely watched cases involving Google and Twitter, the court said the families of terrorism victims did not prove that the companies “aided and abetted” the attacks.
In doing so, the Supreme Court dodged a highly politicized debate over whether tech giants can be sued for content posted by their users even if the companies’ algorithms promoted that content.
A bit of background: In 1996, Congress passed the Communications Decency Act, which fueled the rise of the modern internet. That law contains a provision that has emerged as one of the nation's most hotly contested issues.
Section 230 allowed these companies to largely regulate themselves, shielding them from liability for much of the content their users post on their platforms and granting companies legal immunity for good faith efforts to remove content that violates their policies.
The key part of the provision – sometimes called the "26 words that created the internet" – reads, “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.”
Suffice it to say that Section 230 is not popular with Republicans or Democrats.
By leaving Section 230 in place, the court handed the companies a major victory, making it harder for Americans to sue them for abetting terrorism, Paste BN’s Supreme Court reporter John Fritze wrote.
But – and this is a big but – the high court left for another day broader questions about Section 230.
Stay tuned.
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Each weekday, The Daily Money delivers the best consumer news from Paste BN. We break down financial news and provide the TLDR version: how decisions by the Federal Reserve, government and companies impact you.