Justices seemed sympathetic to Big Tech’s position
Anyone looking for the court’s nine justices to come out the gates firing at tech companies and express profound regrets for the day Section 230 was ever written were in for a disappointment. Nearly every justice emphasized the importance of the carve out for helping tech companies grow, particularly during the early days of the internet.
Though some justices like Elena Kagan noted the difficulties of translating the more than 20-year-old liability protection to a new algorithm-driven world, justices simultaneously noted the difficulty of differentiating between systems that recommend harmful or benign content. Others, like Chief Justice John Roberts, likened recommendation algorithms to other sorting decisions made by publishers of the past.
“It’s really just a 21st century version of what has taken place for a long time in many contexts,” Roberts said. “Which, when you ask a question, people are putting together a group of things, not necessarily precisely answering your question.”
