US sides against Google in consequential social media case

The Biden administration told the U.S. Supreme Court that social media companies in some cases can be held liable for promoting harmful speech, partially siding with a family seeking to sue Alphabet Inc.’s Google over a terrorist attack.

In a Supreme Court filing on Wednesday night, the Justice Department argued that social media websites should be held responsible for some of the ways their algorithms decide what content to put in front of users.

The case, likely to be argued early next year, revolves around the family of Nohemi Gonzalez, a 23-year-old U.S. citizen who was killed by ISIS in Paris in November 2015. Her family is arguing that YouTube, which Google owns, violated the Anti-Terrorism Act because its algorithms recommended ISIS-related content.

The Justice Department did not outright side with Gonzalez. Instead, the government argued that the family should get another crack before a federal appeals court that tossed out the complaint against Google. The government said social media companies shouldn’t be held liable simply for allowing content to be posted or for failing to remove it.

The case could narrow the country’s interpretation of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, the tech industry‘s prized liability shield that protects social media platforms from being held liable for content generated by users.