Gonzalez v. Google LLC

Issue: Whether § 230(c)(1) immunizes Google from Anti-Terrorism Act liability for YouTube's algorithmic recommendations of ISIS videos, on the theory that targeted algorithmic recommendations constitute Google's own expressive conduct rather than merely hosting third-party content.

Nohemi Gonzalez, a 23-year-old U.S. citizen, was killed in the November 2015 ISIS terrorist attacks in Paris. Her family sued Google under 18 U.S.C. §§ 2333(a) and (d)(2), alleging that Google was both directly and secondarily liable for the attack. The secondary liability theory rested on the allegation that YouTube's recommendation algorithm affirmatively provided material support to ISIS by targeting and amplifying ISIS recruitment content to users most likely to be interested — making Google a knowing participant in ISIS's enterprise. The district court dismissed under § 230; the Ninth Circuit affirmed, holding that most claims were barred by § 230 (with a narrow exception for revenue-sharing claims that was resolved on the merits against the plaintiffs). The Supreme Court granted certiorari specifically to address the § 230 question regarding algorithmic recommendations. In a per curiam opinion, the Court declined to resolve the § 230 question. Because the allegations underlying the secondary-liability claims in this case were materially identical to those in the companion case Twitter v. Taamneh — which the Court simultaneously decided on the merits — and because the Court in Taamneh held that those allegations failed to state an aiding-and-abetting claim under the ATA, the § 230 question became largely academic. The Court vacated the Ninth Circuit's judgment and remanded for reconsideration in light of Taamneh, without reaching whether § 230 barred the recommendation-algorithm claims.

The Supreme Court's first opportunity to definitively address § 230's application to algorithmic content recommendations produced no ruling on that question. The Court's restraint left the circuit split between Force v. Facebook (Second Circuit, algorithmic recommendations are publisher activity) and Anderson v. TikTok (Third Circuit, targeted recommendations are platform speech) unresolved. Gonzalez is significant as much for what it did not decide as for what it held — the most pressing open question in § 230 doctrine remains unanswered at the Supreme Court level.