WASHINGTON (Feb. 22, 2023)— On Tuesday, the Supreme Court began hearing arguments in Gonzalez v. Google, a case that questions whether tech giants can be held legally responsible for content promoted by their algorithms.
The case concerns Section 230, a statute that protects online platforms from liability for content produced by others. If the Supreme Court weakens the law, platforms may need to revise or eliminate the recommendation algorithms that govern their feeds. Conversely, should the Court scrap the law entirely, it will leave tech companies more vulnerable to lawsuits based on user content.
Paul Schiff Berman, the Walter S. Cox Professor of Law at the George Washington University Law School, is one of the world’s foremost theorists on the interactions among legal systems. He is the author of over sixty scholarly works, including Global Legal Pluralism: A Jurisprudence of Law Beyond Borders, published by Cambridge University Press in 2012 and the Oxford Handbook of Global Legal Pluralism, published by Oxford University Press in 2020. He was among the first legal scholars to focus on legal issues regarding online activity, and he is co-author of one of the leading casebooks in the field.
Professor German is available for comment on this case. If you are interested in speaking with Professor Berman, please contact GW Media at gwmedia
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