As reported in prior Trending Law Blog posts, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, 47 U.S. §230(c)(1) (“§230”), has come under attack by politicians and members of the public who seek to remove the statute’s immunity provision which protects social media platforms when they are sued for re-publishing content on their websites from a third-party.
On May 18, 2023, the Supreme Court of the United States issued a per curiam decision in Gonzalez v. Google LLC in which the Court declined to address the application of §230 to a case which alleged that Google “was both directly and secondarily liable” for a terrorist attack as a result of a terrorist organization’s use of YouTube, which Google owns and operates. (The Gonzalez case was previously discussed in the November 30, 2022 Trending Law Blog.) Rather than addressing the issue substantively, the Supreme Court reversed and remanded the matter to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which had held that certain claims against Google were not barred by §230. The Court instructed the Ninth Circuit “to consider plaintiffs’ complaint in light of the Court’s decision in” Twitter, Inc. v. Mehier Taamneh (discussed below).
Rob Nussbaum has lectured numerous times on legal issues and social media and how social media and other electronic evidence may be admitted into evidence at trial. He concentrates his practice in general commercial litigation and appears regularly in New Jersey federal and state courts.
For any questions relating to whether your website or social media presence can be used against you as a basis for personal jurisdiction, please contact Robert B. Nussbaum, Esq. at Saiber LLC.