Supreme Court Justices Hesitant to Upend Section 230 in Google Case

Supreme Court justices appeared wary of making major changes to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, observers said — in part because of wariness over their understanding of the internet. 

Key Quotes: At one point, Justice Samuel Alito said he was “completely confused” after petitioner’s counsel Eric Schnapper discussed how video thumbnail placement might be considered partly YouTube’s own speech as well as that of a third party. Justice Elena Kagan suggested that the issue might be better left to Congress, since the justices were “not, like, the nine greatest experts on the internet.” 

The Case in Question: The Supreme Court is considering Gonzalez v. Google, in which the plaintiffs — parents of an American college student killed in an ISIS terrorist attack — are suing Google for allegedly violating the Anti-Terrorism Act by hosting ISIS videos on YouTube. 

What’s Section 230? Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act allows online platforms like Facebook to host content posted by third parties without bearing the legal responsibility of a “publisher” of that content. Without that protection, experts say, sites like Google couldn’t function the way they do today. Some Democrats and Republicans have previously called for reforming the law, albeit for different reasons. 

How the Media Covered It: Coverage was common across the spectrum, with some articles placing more emphasis on justices’ purported lack of internet expertise. However, The Verge (Lean Left bias) took a different approach, calling the hearing both “remarkably entertaining” and “unexpectedly measured.”