Supreme Court shields Twitter from liability for terror-related content and leaves Section 230 … – CNN

CNN  —  The Supreme Court handed Silicon Valley a massive victory on Thursday as it protected online platforms from two lawsuits that legal experts had warned could have upended the internet. The twin decisions preserve social media companies’ ability to avoid lawsuits stemming from terrorist-related content – and are a defeat for tech industry critics who say platforms are unaccountable. In so doing, the court sided with tech industry and digital rights groups who had claimed exposing tech platforms to more liability could break the basic functions of many websites. In one of the two cases, Twitter v. Taamneh, the Supreme Court ruled Twitter will not have to face accusations it aided and abetted terrorism when it hosted tweets created by the terror group ISIS. The court also dismissed Gonzalez v. Google, another closely watched case about social media content moderation – sidestepping an invitation to narrow a key federal liability shield for websites, known as Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Thursday’s decision leaves a lower court ruling in place that protected social media platforms from a broad range of content moderation lawsuits. The Twitter decision was unanimous and written by Justice Clarence Thomas, who said that social
Read More