There is a fascinating broad split, but it was not present in this case. The split arose in a series of opinions by Justice Thomas where he expressed that 230 might allow platforms to discriminate on the basis of content and ideology. And essentially, he suggested that the platform should be treated like common carriers with an obligation,. even though they're not governmental bodies, to open their platforms to all comers without speech discrimination.
As Justice Kagan has asked, “Every other industry has to internalize the costs of its conduct. Why is it that the tech industry gets a pass?” Yet she and the other 8 Supreme Court Justices seemed wary this week as they heard oral arguments in two cases that could upend the Section 230 immunity that social media companies enjoy, Gonzalez v. Google and Twitter v. Taamneh. Today, we hear from three experts: Stanford Law professor Evelyn Douek, National Constitution Center President and CEO Jeffrey Rosen and UC Berkeley computer science professor Hany Farid. Up for discussion — what’s at stake in these two cases, which way the wind seems to be blowing and, of course, will killing Section 230 kill the internet?
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