WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court is taking up its first case about a federal law that is credited with helping create the modern internet by shielding Google, Twitter, Facebook and other companies from lawsuits over content posted on their sites by others.
The justices are hearing arguments Tuesday about whether the family of an American college student killed in a terrorist attack in Paris can sue Google for helping extremists spread their message and attract new recruits.
The case is the court's first look at Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, adopted early in the internet age, in 1996, to protect companies from being sued over information their users post online.
Lower courts have broadly interpreted the law to protect the industry, which the companies and their allies say has fueled the meteoric growth of the internet and encouraged the removal of harmful content.
But critics argue that the companies have not done nearly enough and that the law should not block lawsuits over the recommendations, generated by computer algorithms, that point viewers to more material that interests them and keeps them online longer.
Any narrowing of their immunity could have dramatic consequences that could affect every corner of the internet because websites use algorithms to sort and filter a mountain of data.
"Recommendation algorithms are what make it possible to find the needles in humanity's largest haystack," Google's lawyers wrote in their main Supreme Court brief.
In response, the lawyers for the victim's family questioned the prediction of dire consequences. "There is, on the other hand, no denying that the materials being promoted on social media sites have in fact caused serious harm," the lawyers wrote.
The lawsuit was filed by the family of Nohemi Gonzalez, a 23-year-old senior at Cal State Long Beach who was spending a semester in Paris studying industrial design. She was killed by Islamic State gunmen in a series of attacks that left 130 people dead in November 2015.
The Gonzalez family alleges that Google-owned YouTube aided and abetted the Islamic State group by recommending its videos to viewers most likely to be interested in them, in violation of the federal Anti-Terrorism Act.
Lower courts sided with Google.
One Virginia family will be watching this case closely.
Andy Parker has fought for seven years for internet tech giants like Google and Facebook to remove video of his daughter’s 2015 killing.
Alison Parker was shot and killed on live TV along with photographer Adam Ward while reporting for WDBJ at Smith Mountain Lake — located about 36 miles southeast of Roanoke.
Since then, Parker's family has fought to rid the internet of the video her shooter uploaded of her killing, but to no avail.
Andy Parker said he supports the Gonzalez family. “Really what I'm looking for, and what the Gonzalez family and countless others are looking for, is we just want our day in court. We're not going to file frivolous lawsuits. We want justice.”
Andy wants the video to be removed and scrubbed once and for all. “There's no place for murder videos to be circulated online,” he said.
He nor his wife have seen the video and he said they never will.
“I know that these companies profit from Alison's murder from that video. That's the biggest sticking point for me is that these guys are profiting from her murder,” Andy alleged. “They're profiting from the Gonzalez family. I mean, that should not happen. They should not be rewarded and compensated for our misfortune.”
