PIJIP Faculty Director Michael Carroll was interviewed by The Conversation about Supreme Court cases that force social media companies to change the way they do business. The cases - Gonzalez vs. Google and Twitter vs. Taamneh - ask whether YouTube (owned by Google) and twitter can face liability for terrorist attacks which were linked to online speech. 

When asked about the potential implication for social media firms, Professor Carroll said:

"Although I don’t subscribe to some of the hyperbole – no matter what the justices rule, they are not going to “break the internet” – the stakes are actually quite high for social media companies. And this is largely due to scale.

"This could be a huge issue for social media providers because so many people use their products. At the moment, Section 230 provides social media firms broad, but not blanket, immunity against prosecution for the actions of individuals using their services. It doesn’t protect platforms if they knowingly promote and circulate criminal content such as child pornography, but it does protect them from a lot of other lawsuits."

Click here for the full interview.

PIJIP's Events on These Two Cases

American University Washington College of Law regularly invites counsel of record and counsel for selected amici to offer post-argument reflections in intellectual property (and related) cases heard by the Supreme Court. These events are held on the afternoon of oral argument before the Court. This week we hosted one event on Gonzalez v. Google and another on Twitter v. Taamneh. More events from our IP at the Supreme Court Series are here.