TPA Applauds Rulings in Twitter v. Taamneh and Gonzalez v. Google

The Taxpayers Protection Alliance (TPA), a nonprofit, nonpartisan taxpayer and consumer watchdog organization is celebrating two Supreme Court rulings that will preserve a vibrant, consumer-driven internet. The Supreme Court on Thursday resolved Twitter v. Taamneh and Gonzalez v. Google, two cases with vast significance for the future of online speech. Unanimously, the Court dismissed legal arguments that, if given the force of law, could have exposed platforms to overburdensome and undue liability and gutted 47 U.S. Code § 230, the law better known as Section 230.

In both cases, litigants sought to hold online platforms liable for hosting terrorist content. Gonzalez and Taamneh argued that this should equate legally to aiding and abetting terrorism. However, there is a vast amount of user-generated content posted to, and consumed on, online platforms every day. It is impossible for tech companies to immediately remove all troublesome content.

The High Court recognized this basic reality of online speech in its unanimous opinion in Taamneh, penned by Justice Clarence Thomas.

“The mere creation of those platforms, however, is not culpable,” Justice Thomas writes. “To be sure, it might be that bad actors like ISIS are able to use platforms like defendants’ for illegal—and sometimes terrible—ends.

“But the same could be said of cell phones, email, or the internet generally,” Justice Thomas continues. “Yet, we generally do not think that internet or cell service providers incur culpability merely for providing their services to the public writ large. Nor do we think that such providers would normally be described as aiding and abetting.”

Critics of Section 230 routinely paint platforms’ core distributional functions – such as algorithmic content sorting – as inherently editorial. The upshot of these arguments is that platforms ought to be held responsible for content that they neither authored or endorsed. Justice Thomas, however, pushed back: “Viewed properly, defendants’ ‘recommendation’ algorithms are merely part of that infrastructure.”

“As presented here, the algorithms appear agnostic as to the nature of the content, matching any content (including ISIS’ content) with any user who is more likely to view that content,” he notes. “The fact that these algorithms matched some ISIS content with some users thus does not convert defendants’ passive assistance into active abetting.”

In Gonzalez, the Court remanded the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9^th Circuit for consideration in light of the Taamneh ruling.

The justices’ unanimity should give great hope for the future of technology law and free speech online. That the Court’s opinion’s author is Justice Thomas, widely considered to be a skeptic of Big Tech, is still better.

The legal battles surrounding platforms and Section 230 will certainly continue. However, today’s rulings establish crucial precedent that will preserve speech and freedom online in cases to come.