US evaluates whether social networks can be held responsible for content posted by users; understand

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Decisions, which should only be announced in July, may change the internet law in the country. See what is known about the judgment in 3 points. Google facade in New York. One of the lawsuits analyzed by the US Supreme Court involves asking the company to be held accountable for content posted on the REUTERS/Brendan McDermid network. The US Supreme Court will examine whether social networks can be held responsible for criminal content posted by their users. Currently, these companies make use of the so-called Section 230, which is part of the law that governs communications in the country and exempts internet platforms from responsibility for what is published by third parties. Presidents of Facebook and Google defend US law reform that regulates the internet Two processes that ask for the accountability of social networks are being analyzed by the Court, one involving Twitter and the other, Google. Decisions should come out only in June. See what is known about the judgment that could change the internet law in the US in 3 points: what is section 230, which protects companies what are the cases analyzed in the Supreme Court what companies say 1) What is it Section 230, which protects companies Approved in the United States in 1996, when social networks did not yet exist, Section 230 says that Internet service providers cannot be treated as spokespersons for what is published by third parties. It forms part of the so-called Communications Decency Act. Section 230 also gives platforms some legal protection to moderate what is posted by users in some cases, such as content that is pirated, pornographic, or in violation of federal law. That’s because the US Constitution protects freedom of expression. But the scope of Section 230 has been questioned in recent years, with the rise of hate speech on the internet, for example. Both former President Donald Trump and the current one, Joe Biden, have already spoken out for the end of Section 230. There are also several proposed laws made by congressmen from both the Republican and Democratic parties to reform it, but none have yet been voted on . The owners of social networks themselves say they have suggestions for reforming the law. The chief executives of Meta, Google and Twitter were even heard on the subject in Congress in 2021. They were against the repeal, defended by several Republican legislators. 2) What are the cases reviewed in the Supreme Court Twitter and terrorist group: The “Twitter v. Taamneh” case was filed by American relatives of Nawras Alassaf, a Jordanian killed in a massacre at a nightclub in Istanbul, on January 1st 2017. According to the Reuters agency, Alassaf’s family accused Twitter of helping and inciting the Islamic State group, which claimed responsibility for the attack, by not policing the content posted on the platform. In court documents, Twitter said it had terminated more than 1.7 million accounts for violating rules against “threats or promotion of terrorism”. An appeals court did not consider whether Section 230 could bar the family’s suit and the case ended up in the Supreme Court. Terrorist videos on YouTube: The case called “Gonzalez vs. Google”, was filed by Reynaldo Gonzalez. He alleges that Google was partially responsible for the death of his daughter, Nohemi Gonzalez, in the terrorist attack carried out by the Islamic State in Paris in November 2015. In his action, Gonzalez holds the company responsible for promoting videos of the terrorist group on YouTube, which belongs to Google. That’s because YouTube, like several other digital platforms, uses algorithms to suggest similar videos to users, in so-called “targeted recommendations”, which aim to generate greater user engagement and more advertising revenue. For Gonzalez, by using this resource, the platform promotes the recruitment of terrorists and incites them to carry out attacks, in violation of the US Anti-Terrorism Act. A federal court and the federal court of appeals had previously ruled that Section 230 protects Google from civil liability for videos that were posted on YouTube. But last December, the Department of Justice (DOJ) asked the Supreme Court to send the case to an appeals court for a new trial. The DOJ found that the judges failed to take into account that the plaintiff’s claim may have merit in terms of the company making “targeted recommendations” of similar videos. And that this recommendation system would not be protected by Section 230. 3) What companies and executives say The presidents of the main social networks testified in writing at a hearing of committees of the United States House of Representatives in March 2021. On the occasion, they also responded on various issues involving the platforms. About Section 230, Meta and Google recognized that it needs to be reformed, but understood that companies should not completely lose immunity if they follow best practices for removing harmful content from their platforms. Here’s what each executive said at the time: Sundar Pichai, Google’s chief executive: “Regulation plays an important role in ensuring that we protect what’s great about the open web, while addressing dangers and improving accountability. However, we are concerned that many recent proposals to change Section 230 – including repealing it altogether – would not serve this purpose,” he said. “Without Section 230, platforms would either over-filter content or not be able to filter content at all.” Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive of Meta, which owns Facebook. Instagram and WhatsApp: “Instead of being granted immunity, platforms should be required to demonstrate that they have systems in place to identify illegal content and remove it.” Jack Dorsey, co-founder and then-CEO of Twitter: “Burying Section 230 will result in a further elimination of online speech and will place severe limitations on our collective ability to address harmful content and protect people online,” he said, according to the agency. France Presse. Dorsey stepped down in November of that year. In October 2022, Twitter was purchased by Elon Musk. Months earlier, when announcing the purchase, the billionaire said that “freedom of expression is the foundation of a functioning democracy'” and that Twitter is “the digital city square where vital issues for the future of humanity are debated”. He also said that Twitter would have to respect countries’ laws on freedom of expression. One of his decisions as chief executive was to reactivate Donald Trump’s account, which had been banned from Twitter days after his supporters’ invasion of Congress in January 2021.

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