Supreme Court Hears Arguments in Google Case

Overview

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court heard Oral arguments in the Gonzalez vs Google case. The case originated when members of the terrorist group known as ISIS carried out an attack in Paris killing 130 people, back in November of 2015. The only American to die was Nohemi Gonzalez, whose family is now suing Google. The suit claims that Google's algorithm promoted content for ISIS which led to the extremist who carried out the attack to join the organization in the first place. Google claims that suggested algorithms are “quintessential publishing”, meaning that algorithms are needed to navigate the internet since it has become so vast. 

This case has implications for all tech companies regarding their algorithms and could change the internet as we know it. In this Kudzu narrative brief, we take a look at what the U.S media has to say about the case. 

Key Insights:

• The term “communications decency act” (Section 230) is the most popular phrase in this brief with over 380 mentions in the last 7 days. This law states “no provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider”. This is what Google is basing its entire defense around, implicitly stating that it cannot be held liable for what is posted on its platform since they were not the publisher/speaker.
• This narrative has been covered at a slightly disproportionate rate when it comes to political biases, with left-leaning media leading the charge on this narrative.
• Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan is the most popular name by source, most likely due to her comments on how this case may alter Section 230. Her name was amplified by 108 unique sources.