Meta, Microsoft and other big tech companies called on the U.S. Supreme Court exclude AI-based algorithms from any lawsuit. Several companies, academics and human rights activists have been put on trial in the case against Google. big technologies and Internet experts have mentioned that allowing litigation against algorithms will open a Pandora’s box that put an end to internet freedom.
The current case is Gonzalez v. Google LLC, a lawsuit filed against Google by relatives of Nohemi Gonzalez, one of the victims of the 2015 Paris attacks. The plaintiffs claim that YouTube Algorithm Recommended Videos for ISIS Recruitmentso Google is partly responsible for the young woman’s death. Although the court ruled in favor of the technology, the case went to the Supreme Court.
Plaintiffs allege that recommendation algorithms are a form of moderation not covered by section 230 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. This section, consisting of only 26 words, grants the service provider immunity from content posted by third parties on its platform. The Gonzalez family believes that companies should take responsibility for the recommendations generated by these artificial intelligence algorithms.
As part of the case review process, the Supreme Court heard the opinion of a panel consisting of representatives from Meta, Twitter and Microsoft, as well as academics, Electronic Frontier Foundation and Reddit moderators. They all came to the conclusion that Section 230 is vital to the basic function of the Internet. and that a decision allowing litigation against algorithms would set a precedent for future lawsuits against other recommender systems.
The Importance of AI Algorithms in Moderation
Reddit moderators have mentioned that Section 230 has been instrumental in making communities thrive. Content rules are enforced by moderators, not by the company itself. Without the cover of this law, companies and users face lawsuits over daily content moderation decisions.
Congress designed Section 230 to ensure effective content moderation, and automated tools are needed to help people moderate the endless sea of Internet content. While the applicants and some of their friends are trying to challenge the algorithms, the algorithm is simply a rule created by people to solve a particular situation, which can then be applied on a scale that people could never achieve.
The Internet could not function without algorithmic tools., since the moderation teams cannot handle tens of millions of reposts without outside help. “No group of people would be able to manually filter the vast universe of content on Reddit or many other online platforms without automated tools,” they noted. Yelp said that It will take the average user approximately 181 million years to download all the data from the Internet..
For its part, NYU’s Stern Center for Business and Human Rights, which has criticized YouTube and other major tech companies for allowing hate speech, recognizes the value of Section 230, which guarantees freedom of expression online. In its presentation, the Center stated that without this shield, platforms will cut or remove third-party content before filtering it.. “Concomitant censorship would be the cheapest route, and most providers would choose it at the expense of valuable online speech,” he said.
Section 230 is key to freedom of expression and the functioning of the Internet.
Section 230 has been at the epicenter of the storm for several years now. Donald Trump attempted to torpedo it in response to Twitter’s actions to hashtag its tweets during the 2020 election campaign. Trump’s executive order sought to amend the Communications Decency Act to “combat online censorship.”
The lawsuit against Google is not the only Section 230 case being heard by the Supreme Court. Twitter Inc. vs. Taamneh is another similar lawsuit filed by relatives of a terrorist attack victim. The motions to the judiciary are based on the Counter Terrorism Act of 1996 proposed by then-Senator Joe Biden.
Source: Hiper Textual
