Justices’ Section 230 Punt Can Influence Social Media Harm Cases

The US Supreme Court’s decision to leave intact a decades-old legal shield for internet platforms revives a social media company defense against hundreds of lawsuits claiming that recommendation algorithms cause addiction or facilitate sex crimes.

The justices unanimously found this week that Twitter Inc. and Google LLC’s YouTube can’t be held liable for recommending Islamic State terrorism content. They resolved Gonzalez v. Google without addressing the scope of Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, instead relying on traditional liability principles.

By sidestepping that issue, lower courts can now resume drawing on decades of Section 230 case law that ...