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The U.S. Supreme Court is considering a lawsuit that could repeal a section of the Communications Decency Act (CDA), which governs the laws of online speech.
Specifically, the CDA's Section 230 protects online platforms such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter from liability for harm stemming from content on their sites. Rather than overturning Section 230, we should add limited liability to incentivize platforms to do a better job recognizing and removing truly harmful content.
The case under review is Gonzalez v. Google, in which the plaintiffalleges that because Google's YouTube failed to take down ISIS terrorist videos and even recommended them via its content algorithm, it is thus liable for damages under the Anti-Terrorism Act, as these videos may have played a role in inspiring the 2015 Paris attacks.
Although the plaintiffs have not demonstrated the ISIS videos were viewed by the perpetrators, or that removing the ISIS videos sooner would have prevented the attacks, the case remains underway. The precedent this lawsuit will set if successful, namely that Section 230 does not cover algorithmic recommendations of harmful content, is dangerous. The result would be a low...