Tag: Section 230

How Section 230 helped shape speech on the Internet
Technology

How Section 230 helped shape speech on the Internet

[ad_1] Twenty-six words tucked into a 1996 law overhauling telecommunications have allowed companies like Facebook, Twitter and Google to grow into the giants they are today.A case the U.S. Supreme Court heard Tuesday, Gonzalez v. Google, challenges this law — namely whether tech companies are liable for the material posted on their platforms. Justices will decide whether the family of an American college student killed in a terror attack in Paris can sue Google, which owns YouTube, over claims that the video platform's recommendation algorithm helped extremists spread their message. They seemed unlikely to side with the family, but indicated they are wary of Google's claims that the law gives it and other companies immunity from lawsuits.A second case being heard Wednesday, Twitter v....
Terror fallout: YouTube, Twitter, Facebook face reckoning over killings
Technology

Terror fallout: YouTube, Twitter, Facebook face reckoning over killings

[ad_1] Islamic State gunmen killed American college student Nohemi Gonzalez as she sat with friends in a Paris bistro in 2015, one of several attacks on a Friday night in the French capital that left 130 people dead. Her family's lawsuit claiming YouTube's recommendations helped the Islamic State group's recruitment is at the center of a closely watched Supreme Court case being argued Tuesday about how broadly a law written in 1996 shields tech companies from liability. The law, known as Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, is credited with helping create today's internet. A related case, set for arguments Wednesday, involves a terrorist attack at a nightclub in Istanbul, Turkey, in 2017 that killed 39 people and prompted a suit against Twitter, Facebook and Google, whic...