#338: Gonzalez v. Google

Tech Policy Podcast

TechFreedom

Technology

4.8 • 45 Ratings

🗓️ 15 February 2023

⏱️ 60 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

On February 21, the Supreme Court will hold oral argument in Gonzalez v. Google, the first Section 230 appeal the justices have ever heard. The future of the Internet hangs in the balance. Host Corbin K. Barthold discusses the case, the briefs, and what to watch for at the argument.Correction: As Corbin explains, the petitioners invoke some inapt authorities for the notion that Section 230 borrows the technical, defamation-law definition of the word "publisher." However, the Roommates decision (mentioned at 18:45) is not one of them. (A proper example would have been the Snap decision, discussed later in the episode.)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Okay, boys and girls, it's finally happened.
0:15.9	Welcome to this, a rank punditry episode of the tech policy podcast. I am your host, Corbyn Barthold. It's just me today.
0:27.1	No guest. The topic is important enough that I wanted to get on and do an episode specially
0:33.8	devoted to it. And it's a bit spur of the moment. I've gotten my kids down, getting some coffee so I can keep going,
0:41.4	because I think we need an episode on Gonzalez versus Google,
0:46.5	the Section 230 case at the Supreme Court.
0:49.9	Oral argument will be occurring on February 21st.
0:53.8	That is coming up very quickly.
0:56.1	And I wanted to get some thoughts down.
0:59.5	This is a new experience for me by myself.
1:02.3	Thank you for doing it with me.
1:03.9	I'm wondering if I should adopt my Sam Harris voice
1:08.7	and speak the whole time as if this is a guided meditation about internet law
1:16.3	at the Supreme Court. Don't worry. I'm not actually going to do that. I want to get through a bit
1:24.3	of what's in the briefing. There have been a thousand amicus briefs. I will not
1:28.4	be running those all down, but at least the merits briefs. And then what to watch for in the
1:33.2	oral argument, a bit of a preview of what we can expect, maybe do a bit of tea leaf reading.
1:41.8	If a case ever warranted it, it's this one. The law that created the internet,
1:49.9	the 26 words that created the internet and the title of Jeff Kossoff's great book on the subject.
1:55.7	Section 230 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. That is the law that it is within. It is more commonly
2:02.7	known as Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. That is a bit of a misnomer. It was actually
2:10.3	Senator Exxon's bill that would have banned pornography from the internet, basically, that gave
	...

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