WASHINGTON—Today, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in two landmark cases focused on critical liability protections for online services, known as Section 230.
In Gonzalez v. Google and Twitter, Inc., v. Taamneh, the Supreme Court left Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 intact.
“This is a huge win for free speech on the internet,” said NetChoice Litigation Center Director Chris Marchese. “The Court was asked to undermine Section 230—and declined.”
Marchese continued: “With billions of pieces of content added to the internet every day, content moderation is an imperfect—but vital—tool in keeping users safe and the internet functioning. The Supreme Court’s decisions protect free speech online by maintaining Section 230.”
“Even with the best moderation systems available, a service like Twitter alone cannot screen every single piece of user-generated content with 100% accuracy. Imposing liability on such services for harmful content that unintentionally falls through the crack would have disincentivized them from hosting any user generated content.”
In Twitter v. Taamneh, the Court in an opinion written by Justice Clarence Thomas ruled unanimously in favor of Twitter.
NetChoice looks forward to the Supreme Court granting review in our two pending cases, NetChoice & CCIA v. Paxton and NetChoice & CCIA v. Moody.
Please contact Krista Chavez at press@netchoice.org with inquiries.