2023 Year in Review: The U.S. Supreme Court’s Busy Year of Free Speech and Tech Cases

<

div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”>

<

div class=”field__items”>

<

div class=”field__item even”>

The U.S. Supreme Court has taken an unusually active interest in internet free speech issues. EFF participated as amicus in a whopping nine cases before the court this year. The court decided four of those cases, and decisions in the remaining five cases will be published in 2024.   

Of the four cases decided this year, the results are a mixed bag. The court showed restraint and respect for free speech rights when considering whether social media platforms should be liable for ISIS content, while also avoiding gutting one of the key laws supporting free speech online. The court also heightened protections for speech that may rise to the level of criminal “true threats.” But the court declined to overturn an overbroad law that relates to speech about immigration.  

Next year, we’re hopeful that the court will uphold the right of individuals to comment on government officials’ social media pages, when those pages are largely used for governmental purposes and even when the officials don’t like what those comments say; and that the court will strike down government overreach in mandating what content must stay up or come down online, or otherwise distorting social media editorial decisions. 

Platform Liability for Violent Extremist Content 

Cases: Gonzalez v. Google and Twitter v. Taamneh – DECIDED 

The court, in two similar cases, declined to hold social media companies—YouTube and Twitter—responsible for aiding and abetting terrorist violence allegedly caused by user-generated content posted to the platforms. The case against YouTube (Google) was particularly concerning because the plaintiffs had asked the court to narrow the scope of Section 230 when internet intermediaries r

[…]
Content was cut in order to protect the source.Please visit the source for the rest of the article.

This article has been indexed from Deeplinks

Read the original article: