Tech firms could face more liability for content shared on their sites after the Biden administration said they should be scrutinised “differently” during a US supreme court case.
Lawyers for the U.S Department of Justice argued in a court filing that the way companies are scrutinised for posts uploaded to their platforms should be updated, with exisitng rules rules dating back to 1996.
Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG)’s Google, Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) and Meta Platforms Inc (NASDAQ:FB) owned Facebook are among firms that the Biden administration argued could have to take responsibility for user content, opposing current laws that protect media companies from accusations of harm caused by what is published on sites.
Brought by the family of a victim of the 2015 Paris attacks, Nohemi Gonzalez, the court case centres around content published on YouTube, owned by Alphabet, that is alleged to have incited the violence that saw Gonzalez and 128 others killed.
“By plucking Gonzalez’s case out as the first-ever Section 230 case to be heard, the Supreme Court is signalling it’s time for the tech industry to pay the piper,” said Carrie Goldberg, owner of a New York based law firm.
Since being introduced in 1996, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act has been “big tech’s get-out-of-court-free card,” added Goldberg.
While the filing by the Biden administration did not agree Alphabet should be held responsible for Gonzalez death, it argued that algorithms used by social media’s should face a different kind of scrutiny and suggested the case return to 9th Circuit courts for further review.