Gonzalez v. Google (US Supreme Court 2022)

The US Supreme Court will consider whether Internet companies can be liable for the recommendations made by the algorithms they design, deploy, and use to direct specific Internet content to specific Internet users. In the case before the Court, the Gonzalez family filed a lawsuit against Google, alleging that the company promoted Islamic State recruitment efforts on YouTube with its user-targeting algorithms. Nohemi Gonzalez was killed at La Belle Equipe bistro in Paris in a terrorist attack committed by the Islamic State in November 2015. The critical legal provision is known as "Section 230," a reference to a 1996 law that granted immunity to Internet companies in certain circumstances. The provision was enacted before the use of recommendation algorithms that are designed to profile and target Internet users.

Whether Section 230(c)(1) of the Communications Decency Act immunizes interactive computer services when they make targeted recommendations of information provided by another information content provider, or only limits the liability of interactive computer services when they engage in traditional editorial functions (such as deciding whether to display or withdraw) with regard to such information.