Monty Tayloe

Decisions in the two interlinked cases involving the Communications Decency Act's Section 230 being argued before the Supreme Court next week could lead to many conflicts with state and international laws, force Congress to act, spawn waves of litigation or cause the cases to “dissolve like alka seltzer,” said legal and tech experts on a Brookings Institute virtual panel Tuesday on Gonzalez v. Google and Twitter v. Taamneh. “I think it is correct this will be the most important Supreme Court decision about the Internet possibly ever,” said Alan Rozenshtein, associate professor of law at the University of Minnesota Law School.

The Supreme Court can’t rule that Internet platforms are liable for their recommendations without also applying that requirement to search engines, wrecking the architecture of the internet and damaging the economy, said a host of amicus briefs last week supporting Google in content moderation case Gonzalez v. Google (docket 21-1333).

A Supreme Court ruling in Gonzalez v. Google that an internet platform can be liable for the content it recommends (see 2301130028) would increase the cost and prevalence of content moderation, chill speech, step on congressional authority and ignore other routes for curbing abuses by tech companies, said amicus briefs supporting Google (docket 21-1333) this week . Public Knowledge, the Washington Legal Foundation, the Center for Democracy and Technology and others weighed in on the case.

Nexstar and Charter settled their legal battle over a retransmission consent agreement for Mission Broadcasting’s WPIX New York, according to a filing Monday in the superior court of Delaware. Nexstar reached a settlement in a related court proceeding with Comcast in the U.S. District Court for Southern New York last month (see 2212200057). Both breach of contract cases began after Nexstar sought to apply clauses to WPIX’s retransmission consent contracts after Mission acquired WPIX. Nexstar operates all of Mission's stations through sharing arrangements. In Monday’s filing, Nexstar and Charter asked the court to stay the proceeding in anticipation of the companies requesting a voluntary dismissal in the wake of the settlement. Nexstar and Charter didn’t comment on the terms of the settlement.

A Gray Television petition asking the courts to set aside the FCC’s $518,000 forfeiture order against the company (see 2211010077) suggests it's targeting agency policy rather than simply seeking to overturn the fine, attorneys told us. “The Commission’s Order is erroneous and improper for several reasons,” said Gray’s petition for review in the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals (docket 22-14274) last week.

The U.S. government hasn’t sufficiently made a case defending the Copyright Royalty Board’s Web V ruling on royalty rates for webcast music, said reply briefs Friday in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit from NAB, SoundExchange and the National Religious Broadcasters Noncommercial Music License Committee.

The U.S. Office of the Solicitor General thinks Gonzalez v. Google should be remanded to the lower courts to consider whether YouTube’s recommendations make its owner Google liable under the Antiterrorism Act, it said in an amicus brief filed with the Supreme Court Wednesday (docket 21-1333).

Courts have interpreted the protections of Section 230 of the Communications Act too broadly and social media companies should be held responsible for the content recommended to users by their algorithms, said several amicus briefs filed at the U.S. Supreme Court in Gonzalez v. Google (docket 21-1333) Tuesday by advocacy groups, Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., 26 states and a group of Israeli generals. “Far from discouraging terrorists, social media platforms actively assist their spread,” said the joint filing from former Israeli Minister of Defense Moshe Ya’alon and other retired Israeli military officers. “The same technology that connects dog lovers with chew-toy suppliers on social media platforms carries a parasitic byproduct that is deadly anti-social.”

Upholding the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that Twitter abetted terrorists because the platform was used by ISIS for recruitment (see 2211300073) would have a chilling effect on free speech, open numerous businesses to massive liability, and ignore the difficulties, costs and scale of content moderation, said amicus filings from the U.S Chamber of Commerce, CTA, CCIA and others in Supreme Court case Twitter v. Taamneh (docket 21-1496). “If that is a sufficient basis for liability, intermediaries will no longer be able to function as fora for others’ speech, and free expression will be the loser,” said a joint filing from the ACLU, the R Street Institute,the Reporter’s Committee for Freedom of the Press, the Center for Democracy & Technology, and others.

Websites sending users unsolicited recommendations and creating links to content on their own platforms aren’t protected under Section 230 of the Communications Act because the information they're offering wasn’t created by a third party, argued the petitioners in the initial brief filed Wednesday with the U.S. Supreme Court in Gonzalez v. Google.