Historic discussion in the US Supreme Court: Will the immunity of social networks be removed?
An Israeli lawsuit by the Shurat Hadin organization on behalf of the family of Naomi Gonzalez, who was murdered in Paris by ISIS, is going to cause an international uproar.
Channel 7. 30 Shvat, 5783. 21.02.23
In two precedent cases pending in the US Supreme Court, the extent of the immunity granted by the US legislature to social networks will be tested today. This, following a lawsuit filed by the Shurat Hadin organization, led by attorney Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, which claims that the social media giants have ceased to be a "table ads" only, and therefore cannot disclaim responsibility for terrorist content online.
One of the cases is the case of the late Naomi Gonzalez, an American student who was murdered in Paris in 2015 by a terrorist affiliated with ISIS, whose family is represented by the Shurat HaDin organization and the American attorneys Robert Tolchin and Prof. Eric Shanfer, who operates from years against the phenomenon of incitement and the use of terrorist elements on social networks.
The members of the Gonzalez family claim that the terrorist organizations are taking advantage of social media advertising in order to spread extreme content including beheading videos, to encourage and recruit fighters to join their ranks to carry out terrorism. The case attacks the networks' use of "algorithms" that push and recommend posts to users, thus increasing incitement and testifying that the media giant has control over the content that is published on it.
Ahead of the hearing, a hundred opinions were submitted to the court as "friends of the court" from states, senators, giant media companies and human rights organizations. From Israel, an opinion was submitted by the former security establishment officials, Moshe (Bogie) Ya'alon, Roni Elshich, Ya'akov Amidror, Tamir Hyman, Yossi Koperverser and Haim Tomer, which states that social networks play a decisive role in encouraging and assisting terrorist attacks around the world. In addition, the administration's own position supporting the removal of immunity due to the networks' "algorithms" was submitted.
Attorney Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, president of the Shurat Hadin organization, said outside the court: "After 7 long years in which the case is being conducted in the courts in the USA, the time has come for justice to be done. Social media has become a tool in the hands of the terrorist organizations without which almost nothing is done A terrorist attack. The sophisticated algorithms that generate billions of dollars for social media platforms have become fertile ground for inciting violence and terrorism, for raising resources for terrorist organizations, and for targeting individuals who will join the terrorist circle and carry out attacks. We hope that the composition of conservative judges in the US Supreme Court will reduce the immunity of the media giants social justice and historical justice will be done to the victims of terrorism."
Its a thorny issue with no easy answer. Think the legislative branch dropped the ball on addressing it in an intelligent way. The courts are left with either having to set a horrible precedence one way or another or do legislation on the fly.
Were 19th century newspapers responsible when editorials caused public anger?
Are telephone companies responsible when criminals discuss crimes over their networks?
Will liability just hit large tech companies that we don’t like or smaller online platforms as well eg. to use a completely random example freerepublic.com
Digital ID to use the internet incoming.
Still not seeing the oral arguments for this posted yet. Should be in the next couple of hours.