Google Case Heads to Supreme Court With Powerful Internet Shield Law at Stake

WASHINGTON—Google goes before the U.S. Supreme Court this week to defend what is widely regarded as a pillar of the online economy—and one that is also being blamed for a proliferation of harmful content.

The law at issue, known as Section 230, gives internet platforms legal immunity for almost all third-party content hosted on their sites. A decision to limit that immunity could scramble the business models of the internet’s biggest companies—especially social media platforms such as Instagram, TikTok and Google’s YouTube that rely heavily on recommendation algorithms.

“Unless they reaffirm the status quo, they’re going to cause a huge disruption,” said Alan Rozenshtein, a University of Minnesota law professor, at a Brookings Institution panel discussion about the case last week, where he described Section 230 as “the Magna Carta of the internet.”

There is widespread support in Congress for overhauling Section 230, but legislative efforts to do so have stalled amid partisan disagreements over the diagnosis and the cure.

Lawmakers in both parties worry that the immunity law has helped spread promotion of harmful content to vulnerable groups such as children. Democrats also say the immunity has allowed companies to ignore false and dangerous information spreading online, while Republicans say it has enabled liberal-leaning tech companies to block conservative viewpoints.

That has put the Supreme Court in position to potentially rewrite a legal cornerstone of the internet. The case, Gonzalez v. Google, was brought by the family of an American college student, Nohemi Gonzalez, who was among more than 100 people killed during the 2015 Paris terrorist attacks.

The plaintiffs allege that YouTube failed to take down some ISIS terrorist videos and even recommended them to users. They say that makes Google liable for damages under the Anti-Terrorism Act, although they haven’t presented evidence that the terrorists involved saw those videos. In essence, the plaintiffs and their allies argue that Section 230 protection shouldn’t apply to platforms’ algorithmic recommendations of harmful content.

Google, a unit of Alphabet Inc., prevailed in lower courts by arguing that it is protected by Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act. The law is often known as a shield because it prevents platforms from being sued for hosting harmful user posts, a measure that has been credited with paving the way for internet platforms to prosper economically.

Section 230 also shields platforms from suits for blocking objectionable content. Lawmakers at the time hoped this would encourage internet companies to block harmful content such as sexual images of children, but detractors say tech platforms have used it to censor conservative viewpoints.

Groups supporting the plaintiffs, including some child-safety advocates and conservative free-speech proponents, say the case is a long-overdue chance to right a fundamental legal imbalance that has given the online platforms an unhealthy amount of power and influence.

They say the internet ecosystem has become a breeding ground for a range of social ills, from hate speech to eating disorders, largely because of the 1996 immunity shield for online platforms.

In friend-of-the-court briefs, several allies of the plaintiffs focused on the potential harms done to children online by algorithmic recommendation systems that aim to maximize minors’ engagement.

“We’ve all woken up 20 years later and the internet’s not great,” said Hany Farid, a computer science professor at the University of California, Berkeley, at the recent Brookings panel. “And maybe it’s time to start thinking about how to make the internet a more civilised place.”

But the prospect that Section 230 could be scaled back by the high court has caused a wave of worry in the internet industry.

Companies and others filing friend-of-the-court briefs in support of Google include Meta Platforms Inc., owner of Instagram and Facebook, and NetChoice, a trade group that includes TikTok, which is owned by China’s ByteDance Ltd.

Microsoft Corp. also took Google’s side, saying that platforms “inevitably will have to dramatically cut down on the content they allow on their services—even content they have no reason to believe falls afoul of any law.”

A number of conservative pro-business groups have sided with Google, along with the American Civil Liberties Union and the Progressive Policy Institute.

Limiting Section 230 would stifle the internet’s creative ferment by making platforms wary about recommending personalised content—the technology that has made platforms such as TikTok and Instagram so popular, said Jeff Kosseff, author of “The Twenty Six Words That Created the Internet,” a book about the Section 230 immunity law.

Also filing a brief in support of Section 230 were the sponsors of Section 230, Sen. Ron Wyden (D., Ore.) and former Rep. Christopher Cox (R., Calif.).

A ruling against Google “would subject platforms to liability for all of their decisions to present or not present particular third-party content—the very actions that Congress intended to protect,” the two wrote.

But in a worrisome development for internet companies, the Biden administration argues that expansive readings of the federal immunity law threaten to erode other legal protections.

“An overly broad reading of [the immunity law] would undermine the enforcement of other important federal statutes by both private plaintiffs and federal agencies,” the U.S. Solicitor General wrote in a friend-of-the-court brief.

The Supreme Court decided last fall to hear the case. Many legal scholars believe that Justice Clarence Thomas likely led the push to review the Gonzalez case, since he had previously suggested in court statements and opinions that the federal courts’ current interpretation of Section 230 could be too broad.

The case is scheduled for oral arguments before the court Tuesday, with a decision expected by the end of the high court’s term in late June or early July.

Some scholars believe that the justices could yet stop short of deciding the Gonzalez case. That is because the plaintiffs’ underlying claims under the Anti-Terrorism Act could be rejected by the justices in a similar case, Twitter Inc. v. Taamneh, which is set for arguments Wednesday.

The Twitter case was brought by family members of Nawras Alassaf, who was killed in an ISIS attack at an Istanbul nightclub in 2017. Mr. Alassaf’s relatives allege that Twitter, Google and Meta provided material support to ISIS and are “the vehicle of choice in spreading propaganda.”

Lawyers for Twitter, Google and Facebook have said in court filings that they have made extensive efforts to remove ISIS content and that there is no direct causal link between the websites and the Paris and Istanbul attacks.

The most 2026 element of the latest screen adaptation of 1847’s hottest novel, “Wuthering Heights,” is the scene in which Heathcliff repeatedly asks the young lady he’s undressing, “Do you want me to stop?” even as she writhes with lust, indicating an affirmative response is unlikely.

Previously understood as a notorious brute even by 19th-century standards, Heathcliff now exhibits signs of having earned perfect grades in today’s campus training modules.

There’s also a reference to septicemia, which is writer-director Emerald Fennell’s perhaps too-technical stab at explaining the nonspecific Victorian disease that afflicts one character.

Mostly, however, Ms. Fennell has done an admirable job of not modernising a dark and moody romance. If most of today’s filmmakers crave hearing, “This is not your mother’s (fill in the blank)” when adapting classic material, this pretty much is your mother’s “Wuthering Heights,” or at least one she will recognise.

Catherine Earnshaw, played with great soapy gusto by Margot Robbie, is still the same judgment-impaired social-climbing drama queen as ever, and Ms. Fennell frequently associates her with a rich, decadent red—the colour of the bordello—to suggest that she has unwisely traded her body for riches.

Ms. Fennell, who won an Oscar for writing the feminist parable “Promising Young Woman,” doesn’t bother suggesting that Catherine is a victim of society’s impossible expectations for women, which allows her to focus on the core story without intrusive mutters of disapproval for 19th-century mores.

The plot is a template for every Harlequin romance about a woman caught between a sexy beast and a languid but wealthy wimp.

Catherine, who lives with her frequently drunken father (Martin Clunes) on a struggling Yorkshire estate called Wuthering Heights, grows up with a wild, apparently orphaned boy adopted by her father after being found hapless in the street.

The boy at first doesn’t even talk, and seems to have no name, so Catherine calls him Heathcliff. As an adult, he is played by Jacob Elordi , an excellent match for Ms. Robbie, both in comeliness and star power.

The pair grow up best friends and even sleep in the same bed. The desperate attraction between them is evident to both, but Catherine has her sights set on a higher-status mate than this mere stable boy.

After much figurative and literal peering over the walls of the posh neighbouring estate, Thrushcross Grange, she twists an ankle and becomes a six-week houseguest of the gentleman who owns it, the wealthy Edgar Linton (Shazad Latif). He lives with his ward, Isabella (Alison Oliver). Heathcliff, in agony, moves away without notice while Catherine marries Edgar.

Ms. Fennell has greatly streamlined the complicated plot of Emily Brontë’s novel, eliminating the framing device, the supernatural element, several peripheral figures and a second generation of characters.

Other adaptations have made similar excisions, and yet the latest version is luxuriantly long, fully half an hour longer than the much-loved 1939 film by William Wyler that starred Merle Oberon, Laurence Olivier and David Niven.

Ms. Fennell is a millennial who might have been expected to make the material slick, hip or at least fast; she has done none of that.

The story is a slow burn, as it should be, an extended sonata of moaning winds, crackling storms, smouldering glances and heaving bosoms. When you’ve got two actors as luminous as Ms. Robbie and Mr. Elordi, you don’t need them to say clever things, and they don’t.

Having simplified matters, Ms. Fennell sloughs off the psychological depth of the novel and instead lavishes attention on the heavy breathing and the decor, exhibiting much interest in the ornate mansion in which the Linton family lives (one room is set aside for ribbons only) and the costumes and accessories with which Ms. Robbie is gloriously draped.

Catherine essentially becomes a character in a Sofia Coppola movie who grows increasingly trapped and anguished in proportion to her cosseting. A slate of songs by Charli XCX captures Catherine’s tragic self-absorption without seeming jarringly modern.

The movie is very much aimed at female viewers, and Heathcliff (whose bare-chested form Ms. Fennell’s camera adoringly takes in) is less robustly drawn than in some previous iterations, driven mainly by carnal lust rather than a more all-encompassing rage.

Olivier’s demonic anger at the world came through clearly, whereas Mr. Elordi’s Heathcliff seems as though he’d be content to simply peel away Catherine from Edgar. And though Nelly (Hong Chau), Catherine’s maid and confidante, plays an essential role in developments, her character remains a bit frustratingly hazy.

Still, in the wake of adaptations such as 2012’s “Anna Karenina,” with Keira Knightley , and 2013’s “The Great Gatsby,” with Leonardo DiCaprio, that were all sizzle and flash, “Wuthering Heights” is a worthy throwback.

Deeply felt longing is its own kind of sizzle.

Google Case Heads to Supreme Court With Powerful Internet Shield Law at Stake

Company’s defence against liability in 2015 Paris terrorist attack invokes ‘Magna Carta of the internet’

Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi star in an adaptation of the classic novel that respects the romance’s slow burn.