The Supreme Court hears arguments for two cases that could reshape the future of the internet
See all Stories
Justice Sotomayor asks a pointed question about whether recommending content is the same as helping people connect via chatrooms — basically an interrogation of whether algorithms, intentionally, connect people with radicals. This question will likely be explored in more detail in tomorrow’s case. Here’s Justice Sotomayor:
I can really see that an internet provider who was in cahoots with ISIS provided them with an algorithm that would take anybody in the world and find them for them, and do recruiting of people by showing them other videos that would lead them to ISIS, that’s an intentional act, and I could see 230 not going that far. The question is, how do you get yourself from a neutral algorithm to an aiding and abetting? An intent, knowledge… there has to be some intent to aid and abet.
