Both cases examine whether internet firms should be liable under federal anti-terrorism law when they fail to purge terrorist content from their site or promote content that radicalises terrorists. At the centre of both cases is Section 230, a 26-word 1996 US law that “created the internet as we know it” and has shielded internet firms like Google, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and others from liability for content on their sites.
On Feb 21, the US Supreme Court began hearing oral arguments in a case known as Gonzalez versus Google. The case involves the family of an American woman killed in the 2015 terrorist attacks by ISIS in Paris. The family claims that Google, which owns YouTube, bears responsibility for the automated process that recommends videos. That includes those that could contribute to radicalisation.
A day later, on Feb 22, America’s highest court heard arguments in another case, Twitter versus Taamneh. A terrorist attack on the Reina nightclub in Istanbul had killed Nawras Alassaf, a Jordanian. His relatives — including Mehier Taamneh and others — sued the microblogging platform Twitter in the US, which they said could remove tweets and accounts of the terrorist but did not do so proactively.
