Supremes Say The Don’t Understand While Determining the Fate of the Internet

The Supreme Court held oral arguments yesterday on two cases regarding Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act and also the Anti Terrorism Act (ATA).

The Justices are being asked to decide if Google’s displaying of ISIS videos makes them a publisher and thereby eliminates their protection from being sued for user generated content under Section 230. The other case they are deciding is whether Twitter’s failure to pull down all ISIS-themed tweets makes them complicit in aiding terrorists under the ATA.

While we won’t know the outcome of this until this summer, it really could have a major impact on the future of any company that allows users to generate content or allows users to interact with them on social media.

I predict that if the Men (and Women) in Black torpedo Section 230, social media, as we know it, will be a thing of the past because anyone who is wronged by anything that happens on social media will generate a lawsuit.

This also means that any new company that has thoughts of doing anything in the social media space will not be able to find investors due to the risk, so the incumbents will own the space. We will be stuck with Facebook and Twitter, if that isn’t a horrible thought.

Finally, it also means that Mr. Musk’s vision of free speech on Twitter (as well as every other platform), will go down in flames, unless he wants to spend the rest of his life in court and empty his piggy bank.

The good news is that we saw a couple of things in the oral arguments.

First, Justice Thomas fell asleep during the three hour hearing and left in the middle of it. Not sure what this portends, but it is interesting.

Next, multiple justices said that they could not understand the issues. This is not surprising for a group of folks who are, kindly, not very technically literate but have to determine the law of the land on a very technical issue.

A few of the justices grasped the idea that if you say that Google can’t recommend ISIS videos, it also can’t recommend where to go to dinner or recommend apple pie recipes.

Some of the justices seemed concerned about “breaking the Internet” – direct quote.

They also said that dealing with this is not their job, it is Congress’ job. Very astute on that point.

As a result, I am CAUTIOUSLY optimistic that they won’t do anything totally insane, but they could do something moderately insane. We won’t know until this summer.

Credit: CNN