US Supreme Court hears case brought by family of Paris attacks victim against YouTube

The United States’ top court is considering whether tech companies can be held accountable for content posted by users, after a case brought by the family of an American woman killed in the 2015 Paris attacks, who argued that the terrorists had been recruited to the Islamic State armed group in part because of videos they were shown via YouTube’s algorithm.

Beatriz Gonzalez, the mother of Nohemi Gonzalez, a student killed in the Paris terrorist attacks, and stepfather Jose Hernandez, outside the Supreme Court, 21 February 2023. © Alex Brandon/AP

The Supreme Court on Wednesday is set to hear a case brought against Twitter by the American relatives of a Jordanian man killed in a massacre at a Turkish nightclub on 1 January 2017, who argue the platforms assisted in fueling the growth of the terrorist organisation, which claimed responsibility for the attack.

On Tuesday the court heard arguments in an appeal in a second lawsuit specifically against YouTube, owned by Google’s parent company, Alphabet, brought by the family of Nohemi Gonzalez, an 23-year-old American citizen who was studying in France and was one of the 130 people killed in the November 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris that were claimed by the Islamic State.

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The argument in that case was that the Islamic State used YouTube to spread its message and recruit people, and that the platform’s algorithm, which recommends videos to users based on their previous choices and profile, was critical to the growth of the terrorist organisation.

Both lawsuits were brought under a US law that enables Americans to recover damages related to "an act of international terrorism."

Current law shields internet companies

At the heart of the cases is Section 230 of the federal Communications Decency Act, which currently gives internet platforms immunity from content that comes from a third party, even if it is presented as a recommendation by the site.

In a 2.5 hour session on Tuesday, the nine justices targeted their questions on better understanding Section 230, which was signed in 1996, before Google was created.

They acknowledged that the legal shield was probably no longer appropriate, given the changes in the online world since it was put into effect, but they said that court may not be the best place to fix the law, even as the politically-divided Congress has been unable to pass legislation that would update it.

"We're in a predicament here because this is a statute that was written at a different time when the internet was completely different," said Justice Elena Kagan.

"We're a court, we really don't know about these things. These are not like the nine greatest experts on the internet."

The justices suggested that changing the rules would open the door to many other lawsuits, and Justice Brett Kavanaugh said it would invite "economic dislocation" and "really crash the digital economy with all sorts of effects on workers and consumers."

Lawyers representing the plaintiffs insisted that the impact could be limited by the way the law could be rewritten.

The Supreme Court declines to hear the vast majority of cases, and some experts believe that by deciding to hear these two cases, they could be willing to modify the law.

Rulings in both cases are due by the end of June.

(with newswires)