Gonzales v. Google: A battle over online content

STORY JAYDEN TRAN ILLUSTRATION ELLIE NAKAMURA

Algorithms and recommended content continue to shape the world around us. From a silly cat video on TikTok’s For You page to the Yelp reviews that are pushed onto people visiting Los Angeles, America is controlled by recommendations made online.

The state of personalized content on the internet is in danger, with the family of American student Nohemi Gonzales pushing forward in their civil liabilities lawsuit against Google. Nohemi’s family has been lobbying for corporations to be held liable for the content posted to their sites; their case states that content supporting the Islamic state led to the Paris Attack where Nohemi died.

In Gonzales v. Google, the Supreme Court will determine overturning the 26 words in Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, which prevents companies from being liable for the information posted on their sites. For the sake of free speech online, it is imperative that the court rules in favor of corporations to continue preserving the sanctity of how content is pushed to consumers online.

The decision in Gonzales v. Google will shape the future of the internet, and more specifically, the involvement of corporations in how they moderate and control their spaces online. On one hand, it is implied that corporations do their best to promote equal and safe platforms in the forums and platforms they create. On the other hand, it is unreasonable for companies to be expected to vet and moderate all the content of all the users on their site, especially for large companies like YouTube that have 3,700,000 videos uploaded to their sites daily.

If the Supreme Court determines that Section 230 is a violation of specific civil rights for users online, it is likely that there will be a complete overhaul of the internet and media that impacts users on all levels. By striking down this portion of legislation in the CDA, corporations will lose their governmental protections and find themselves buried by an assault of lawsuits for content published to their site. Whether it be Swifites coming together to sue Twitter in a civil action lawsuit for someone’s tweet that Midnights is a bad album or Republican legislators suing Instagram for coalition accounts that promote voting in favor of the Democratic party, overruling Section 230 will challenge the content that sites allow to be uploaded.

The attorneys representing Gonzales claim that – when content is outlined to individuals on the basis of data and algorithmic recommendation – Section 230 is not applicable to corporations. For Gonzales’s case, while YouTube could not have controlled ISIS-specific content being uploaded to their platform, they believe that YouTube is at fault due to their algorithms recommending this content to specific individuals. However, these videos targeted individuals who were already likely to join or agree with the movement; this lacking argument has led both district and state courts to disagree with the claims made by Gonzales’s attorneys. This case completely counters the very thought of consumable content in the modern day.

An individual’s interest is tracked through data, searches, and cookies. The tracking of an individual person’s likes and dislikes is what leads to people seeing a targeted advertisement for the dress they looked at on a website or receiving ads slandering a political candidate running a campaign in their district. Without this tracking, the For You page would cease to be a FOR YOU page, YouTube feeds will become what has the most attention throughout the world, and small clothing shops may never get their name out there.

Tailored content is presented for individuals to continue consuming, but this can only be done if corporations keep their protections under Section 230 of the CDA. Simply speaking, the basis of content recommendation has become a significant aspect of the lives of teenagers and Americans alike, and this culture is now stuck being debated in the hands of the Supreme Court.