Skip to main content

The US supreme court case that could bring the tech giants to their knees

The US supreme court case that could bring the tech giants to their knees

(Image Source: Flickr)

It's about time that the issue of whether social media companies should be held accountable for content that is suggested to users gets revisited.

  • ‌Two weeks ago, the US supreme court decided that it would hear Gonzalez v Google, a landmark case that is giving certain social-media moguls sleepless nights for the very good reason that it could blow a large hole in their fabulously lucrative business models.
  • ‌Since this might be good news for democracy, it's also a reason for the rest of us to sit up and pay attention.
  • ‌First, some background.
  • ‌In 1996, two US lawmakers, Representative Chris Cox from California and Senator Ron Wyden from Oregon, inserted a clause into the sprawling telecommunications bill that was then on its way through Congress.
  • ‌The clause eventually became section 230 of the Communications Decency Act and read: "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.
  • ‌"The motives of the two politicians were honourable: they had seen how providers of early web-hosting services had been held liable for damage caused by content posted by users over whom they had no control.
  • ‌It's worth remembering that those were early days for the internet and Cox and Wyden feared that if lawyers had henceforth to crawl over everything hosted on the medium, then the growth of a powerful new technology would be crippled more or less from birth.
  • ‌And in that sense they were right.
  • ‌What they couldn't have foreseen, though, was that section 230 would turn into a get-out-of-jail card for some of the most profitable companies on the planet – such as Google, Facebook and Twitter, which built platforms enabling their users to publish anything and everything without the owners incurring legal liability for it.
  • ‌So far-reaching was the Cox-Wyden clause that a law professor eventually wrote a whole book about it, The Twenty-Six Words That Created the Internet.
  • ‌A bit hyperbolic, perhaps, but you get the idea.
  • ‌Now spool forward to November 2015 when Nohemi Gonzalez, a young American studying in Paris, was gunned down in a restaurant by the Islamic State terrorists who murdered 129 other people that night.
  • ‌Her family sued Google, arguing that its YouTube subsidiary had used algorithms to push IS videos to impressionable viewers, using the information that the company had collected about them.
  • ‌Their petition seeking a supreme court review argues that "videos that users viewed on YouTube were the central manner in which IS enlisted support and recruits from areas outside the portions of Syria and Iraq which it controlled".
  • ‌The key thing about the Gonzalez suit, though, is not that YouTube should not be hosting IS videos (section 230 allows that) but that its machine-learning "recommendation" algorithms, which may push other, perhaps more radicalising, videos, renders it liable for the resulting damage.
  • ‌Or, to put it crudely, while YouTube may have legal protection for hosting whatever its users post on it, it does not – and should not – have protection for an algorithm that determines what they should view next.
  • ‌This is dynamite for the social-media platforms because recommendation engines are the key to their prosperity.
  • ‌They are the power tools that increase the user "engagement" – keeping people on the platform to leave the digital trails (viewing, sharing, liking, retweeting, purchasing, etc) – that enable the companies to continually refine user profiles for targeted advertising.
  • ‌And make unconscionable profits from doing so.
  • ‌If the supreme court were to decide that these engines did not enjoy section 230 protection, then social media firms would suddenly find the world a much colder place.
  • ‌And stock-market analysts might be changing their advice to clients from "hold" to "sell".
  • ‌Legal scholars have been arguing for decades that section 230 needs revision.
  • ‌Freedom of speech fanatics see it as a keystone of liberty, as the "kill switch" of the web.
  • ‌Donald Trump made threatening noises about it.
  • ‌Tech critics (such as this columnist) regard it as an enabler of corporate hypocrisy and irresponsibility.
  • ‌However you look at it, though, it's more than half a century since it became law, which is about 350 years in internet time.
  • ‌Having such a statute to regulate the contemporary networked world seems a bit like having a man with a red flag walking in front of a driverless car. (
  • ‌Though, come to think of it, that might not be such a bad idea.)Versions of the question posed by the Gonzalez suit – whether section 230 immunises internet platforms when they make targeted recommendations of content posted by other users – have been put to US courts over the last few years.
  • ‌To date, five courts of appeals judges have concluded that the section does provide such immunity.
  • ‌Three appeals judges have ruled that it does not, while one other has concluded only that legal precedent precludes liability for recommendation engines.
  • ‌There's no legal consensus here, in other words.
  • ‌It's high time that the supreme court decided the matter.
  • ‌After all, isn't that what its there for?



Get more similar tech news on our Quora Space.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

JioBook Launched in India with Price: 9 Features and Specifications to Know about JioBook

JioBook Launched in India with Price: 9 Features and Specifications to Know about JioBook New JioBook 2022 Edition Jio finally entered the laptop market and unveiled the reasonably priced JioBook after numerous rumours and leaks. But only government workers were eligible. This will no longer be the case as the laptop is now available for purchase in India by anyone, and for less than Rs 20,000. JioBook Features and Specifications It features an 11.6-inch display with a screen resolution of 1366×768 pixels. It boasts a lightweight and minimal design with just the Jio logo on the lid. JioBook Under the hood, there's an octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 665 processor. It comes with 2GB of RAM and 32GB eMMC storage. This can be further expanded by up to 128GB.The laptop runs JioOS, which is based on Android . There's support for the Jio apps and Microsoft 365 apps. Connectivity options include Wi-Fi Wi-Fi – 802.11 ac, 4G LTE, Bluetooth version 5.0, 2 USB ports, an HDMI p...

Fortnite Chapter 3 Season 4: Paradise Update Adds Spider-Gwen, Chrome Splash, New Abilities, More

Fortnite Chapter 3 Season 4: Paradise Update Adds Spider-Gwen, Chrome Splash, New Abilities, More   source: Early Game The Paradise update went live on Sunday. In the new update to the free-to-play battle royale game, another substance called Chrome has been added. The game presently offers the capacity for gamers to transform objects and their characters into Chrome. With the assistance of Chrome Sprinkle, a player can now traverse freely for safeguards, as it permits your in-game characters to stroll through walls. By tossing Chrome Sprinkle at their feet, players can transform themselves into Chrome, which gives them extraordinary capacities. The update also includes new seasonally themed Chrome weapons. source: YouTube Epic Games on Sunday carried out the Fortnite Chapter 3 Season 4 update, called Paradise. The most recent season introduces another substance named as Chrome, which is spreading across the island. The new Fortnite season presents new weap...

Vivo Releases Funtouch OS 13 Beta Rollout Timeline for Vivo and iQoo Phones; Here Are the Eligible Devices!

  Vivo Releases Funtouch OS 13 Beta Rollout Timeline for Vivo and iQoo Phones; Here Are the Eligible Devices! Funtouch OS 13 Vivo recently unveiled the new Funtouch OS 13, which is based on Android 13, and concurrently announced the deployment schedule for its qualifying smartphones. The premium Vivo X80 Pro, iQOO 9, and iQOO 9 Pro have already received the beta release of Funtouch OS 13. See additional information below. Vivo Funtouch OS 13 Eligible Devices ‌November 2022 ‌Vivo X80 ‌Vivo X70 Pro, X70 Pro+ ‌Vivo V25, V25 Pro ‌Vivo V23, V23e 5G ‌Vivo T1, T1 Pro 5G ‌Vivo Y75 5G ‌Vivo y35 ‌Vivo Y22, Y22s December 2022 ‌Vivo X60, X60 Pro, X60 Pro+ From H1 2023 ‌Vivo V21, V21e ‌Vivo V20, V20 (2021), V20 Pro ‌Vivo Y75 ‌Vivo Y72 5G ‌Vivo Y53s ‌Vivo Y21s ‌Vivo Y33s ‌Vivo Y20G ‌Vivo Y21T ‌Vivo Y51A ‌Vivo Y33T ‌Vivo Y31 ‌Vivo Y20T ‌Vivo T1x iQOO Funtouch OS 13 Eligible Devices October End 2022 ‌iQOO 9T ‌iQOO 9 SE ‌iQOO Neo 6 November Mid 2022 ‌iQOO Z6...