Oregon’s U.S. Senator Ron Wyden has submitted an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court urging them to uphold what he views as decades of precedent concerning Section 230. There’s been recent controversy over the laws protections of social media platforms.
The brief is joined by former Rep. Chris Cox, R-Calif., both he and Wyden co-wrote the 1996 law that’s now before the court.
Section 230 is an internet law provision that ensures the person who creates content — such as a tweet, blog post or video — is the one legally responsible for it, rather than the platform where that content is posted. In the case currently before the court, the controversy centers more on the algorithms that serve the content, rather than content itself.
Wyden and Cox filed the amicus brief to Gonzalez v. Google, a case involving whether Section 230 allows Google to face lawsuits for YouTube’s algorithms that suggest third-party content to users. The co-authors reminded the court that internet companies were already recommending content to users when the law went into effect in 1996, and that algorithms are just as important for removing undesirable posts as suggesting content users might want to see.
“Section 230 protects targeted recommendations to the same extent that it protects other forms of content presentation,” the co-authors wrote. “That interpretation enables Section 230 to fulfill Congress’s purpose of encouraging innovation in content presentation and moderation. The real-time transmission of user-generated content that Section 230 fosters has become a backbone of online activity, relied upon by innumerable Internet users and platforms alike. Section 230’s protection remains as essential today as it was when the provision was enacted.”
Wyden and Cox made clear YouTube failed in its good faith efforts to detect ISIS videos, which are heinous, unacceptable, often illegal, and completely banned under YouTube’s terms of service. They also made clear that Section 230 does not protect actions by companies that are not publishing users’ content, including Snapchat’s speed filter, Amazon’s delivery of defective merchandise or sites that allowed illegal home rental bookings.
Wyden and Cox’s brief was supported by attorneys Don Verrelli, Ginger Anders, Dahlia Mignouna, Leonard Mangat and Jonathan Blavin of Munger, Tolles and Olson. Yale Law School’s David Dinielli and Prof. Jack Balkin also are counsel on the brief. They worked with a team of students from Yale Law School’s Tech Accountability & Competition Project, who also contributed to the brief. Senior Counsel Ryan Carroll, Deputy Policy Director Keith Chu and Policy Advisor Rachel Lang of Senator Wyden’s office also assisted in drafting the brief.
Wyden, in a release, points to an analysis supporting his position, which you can find here.
Read the full amicus filing here.
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