C_NCENTRATE 919: AI drugs, new emojis, data Fire Sales, State of Blockchain report, +++
ARE BIG PLATFORMS LIABLE FOR ANYTHING?
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Another busy week in tech land. Twitter is going to charge users for 2FA, Microsoft is already limiting Bing chats as things got weird, the US went after more crypto fiefdoms, and the NFT market is fluctuating. The big news concerns if tech companies are liable when their algorithms recommend terrorist content.
That's what the Supreme Court in America is evaluating in the Gonzalez v. Google case on Feb 21, which could upend how the internet works. The case concerns section 230 (written in 1996), often referred to as the liability shield for big tech platforms regarding content that others put onto their sites and the algorithms that serve that content to users.
The Gonzalez case regards Islamic State gunmen killing American college student Nohemi Gonzalez when she was in Paris in 2015 (+130 people were also killed that night). The case against Google is that YouTube's recommendations helped the recruitment of the Islamic State group members.
The whole process highlights the issues facing U.S. politics, and, in reality, there are no easy answers regardless of whether or not you feel confident in the Supreme Court (and many do not) to make the right decision. Users will undoubtedly lose either way; in one corner, you have the Democrats who want Section 230 gone so big platforms can be held accountable (and have to censor more), while the Republicans want it removed so that people can sue big platforms into censoring less. That's what the Supreme Court in America is evaluating in the Gonzalez v. Google case, which could upend how a lot of the internet works.
SO WHAT?
__ DO __ Know that if this doesn’t go Google’s way, the case could cost the company up to +$160B in ad revenue. // __ DON’T __ Forget when this law was written AOL had five million users. Facebook now has around 3 billion. New laws are needed to keep the internet fair and a place for all, but not at any price. The case highlights again the issues of big tech creating products and services without thinking about how such things can be misused.
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