Google’s shift toward using AI to generate a written answer to user searches instead of providing a list of links ranked algorithmically by relevance was inevitable. Before AI Overview — introduced last week for US users — Google had Knowledge Panels, those information boxes that appear toward the top of some searches, incentivizing users to get their answers directly from Google, rather than clicking through to a result. 

When the US Supreme Court agreed to hear Gonzalez v. Google, its first case involving Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, the tech-policy world was laser-focused on its implications.

The Supreme Court on Thursday handed big tech companies, including Google and Twitter, legal wins in a pair of lawsuits alleging that the companies should be liable for ISIS attacks because of content the terror organization promoted using their platforms.

The companies were sued separately by the families of the victims. In the case against Twitter, Justice Clarence Thomas authored a unanimous opinion saying that the families did not provide sufficient evidence to establish that the companies should be held liable for aiding and abetting.

The Supreme Court on Thursday dodged a thorny debate over whether Big Tech companies such as Google can be sued for their recommendations in a case some experts warned could fundamentally change the way the internet works.   

The Supreme Court on Thursday punted the issue of determining when internet companies are protected under a controversial liability shield, instead resolving the case on other grounds.

The justices were considering two lawsuits in which families of terrorist attack victims said Google and Twitter should be held liable for aiding and abetting ISIS, leading to their relatives’ deaths.

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments Tuesday in the first of two cases this week that explore the extent of the legal protections given to tech companies that provide a platform for third-party users to publish content.

“We’re a court. We really don’t know about these things. These are not the nine greatest experts on the internet.”

The Supreme Court on Tuesday debated the scope of a 27-year-old federal law that shields social-media companies from liability for content published by others. At issue in Gonzalez v. Google is whether Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act protects internet platforms when their algorithms target users and recommend someone else’s content.

Supreme Court Justices voiced hesitation on Tuesday about upending a key legal shield that protects tech companies from liability for their users’ posts, and for how the companies moderate messages on their sites.

Justices across the ideological spectrum expressed concern with breaking the delicate balance set by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act as they rule on the pivotal case, Gonzalez v. Google, even as some suggested a narrower reading of the liability shield could sometimes make sense.

In 2015, ISIS conducted a series of coordinated attacks around Paris that killed 130 people and wounded nearly 500 more. Two years later, 39 people were killed in an ISIS attack on an Istanbul nightclub during the early hours of New Year’s Day. This week, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in a pair of cases arising from the attacks. The justices’ decisions in Gonzalez v. Google and Twitter v. Taamneh could reshape legal liability for some of the nation’s largest technology companies.

Gonzalez v. Google