Google, Facebook And Other Internet Forums Face Supreme Court Reckoning – Report

Legal protections that shield internet platforms from being sued for alleged harmful content posted by third parties could be affected by the Supreme Court in an upcoming hearing.

The federal shield law, known as Section 230, is facing a showdown after the Supreme Court agreed this month to hear a lawsuit against Google. In that lawsuit, the Wall St. Journal reported, the plaintiffs claim Section 230 shouldn’t protect platforms that steer people to harmful content, such as terrorist videos.

Lifting that protection could usher in a new era of strict content moderation.

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Beyond the Supreme Court case, Texas and Florida state laws targeting alleged online censorship by Big Tech platforms also are under separate legal challenges that could rise to the Supreme Court.

The Big Tech industry argues that a platform’s First Amendment rights would be violated if they were forced to tighten regulations by being defined as “common carriers.”

If the protections afforded by Section 230 are weakened, the tech companies that use algorithms to push content to readers could be severely hampered. Opponents argue that the tech firms have too much power to control what people see and read.

“This is going to be the most important [Supreme Court] term ever for the internet,” said Alan Rozenshtein, a former Justice Department cybersecurity official who is now a University of Minnesota law professor, said to the WSJ. “It’s not even close.”

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