reynaldo Gonzalez v. Google LLC

In November 2015, a series of coordinated terrorism attacks occurred in Paris. At least 130 were killed by the terrorists, and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) took responsibility for the attack. Among those killed was a single American, Nohemi Gonzalez, a 23-year-old student. Her family began to seek legal remedies against Google, the parent company of YouTube. Their suit argued that through its recommendation system that tailors content based on user profiles, YouTube led users towards recruitment videos for ISIS, and were partially responsible for Nohemi’s death. Google defended itself by relying on Section 230, passed as part of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which provides immunity from content published on an Internet service provider’s platform by third-party users. A lower court ruled in favor of Google, and the decision was upheld by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. In their appeal to the Supreme Court, the family focused more on the YouTube algorithm that has