For years, Washington has been stumped about how to regulate the internet—or if it should even try. But the Supreme Court is set to hear a case next week that could completely transform our online world as we know it.
On Tuesday, justices will hear arguments for Gonzalez v. Google, a case that challenges Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a 1996 law that grants internet platforms immunity for most third-party content posted on their websites. The arguments will revolve around tech algorithms, which the plaintiffs say boosted extremist messaging in the lead up to a terrorist attack. They argue that Section 230's protections should not apply to the content a company’s algorithm recommends online, and therefore Google is legally liable for the extremist videos published on its YouTube service.
