Big Tech's future is up to a Supreme Court that doesn't understand it

These articles just show how detached people are thinking the &quot;on an iphone&quot; is somehow new and never before seen. They&#x27;ve fallen prey to their own marketing ideology.<p>What &quot;big tech&quot; is doing is not new it&#x27;s the same game that companies have been doing since there have been companies. Common carrier status was always about not being party to messages of your users. Big tech is absolutely party to the messages of their users, even private ones. We all know it, they do it intentionally and even the stodgy old people on the supreme court can clearly see their game.<p>If you&#x27;re going to &quot;control the narrative&quot; by choosing what people see and what the don&#x27;t, then you need to be responsible for what is displayed. This isn&#x27;t and opt-in level of control there&#x27;s not even an opt-out. They blatantly decide what the news is and feed it to you, no matter what you try and do to search around it.<p>It has always blown my mind that google maps has no option to show all the points of interest no matter how far you zoom in. Just one tiny example of a service populated by users but then controlled by the machine.<p>Be a common carrier or don&#x27;t be. This manipulation game needs to end. I don&#x27;t know what the court will do but hopefully provide guidelines on what common carrier is.

Tech isn&#x27;t particularly complicated from a legal perspective especially in this case. Regardless of whatever algorithms or infrastructure being used to power it, Twitter and Google function mostly as media companies. Section 230 was put together in a completely different political and economic environment than what we have today--granting tech firms powers they would&#x27;ve unlikely been able to secure at any other time. If they lose the case it won&#x27;t be because the Supreme Court doesn&#x27;t &quot;understand&quot;.

Just don&#x27;t promote, suggest, or downvote content.<p>This is a distraction and non-issue... “The court might think it&#x27;s doing one thing and it&#x27;s actually doing something very different,” said Evelyn Douek, a law professor at Stanford who specializes in tech law. “It’s ill-matched to the problem.”<p>If your algorithm can&#x27;t be explained to a judge, someone who is highly educated at understanding logic and reason, then perhaps it is broken anyway.<p>The fact is Big Tech has dug its own grave long ago, and that should have been obvious since the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

This Axios &quot;article&quot; does not mention the actual cases[1][2], so I&#x27;m left to trust that the two people in the by-line actually know what they&#x27;re talking about. In case you don&#x27;t like making those sorts of assumptions, here&#x27;s the summary from scotusblog on the two cases. Oral argument is 21-22 FEB.<p>&gt;Issue: Whether Section 230(c)(1) of the Communications Decency Act immunizes interactive computer services when they make targeted recommendations of information provided by another information content provider, or only limits the liability of interactive computer services when they engage in traditional editorial functions (such as deciding whether to display or withdraw) with regard to such information.<p>&gt;Issues: (1) Whether a defendant that provides generic, widely available services to all its numerous users and “regularly” works to detect and prevent terrorists from using those services “knowingly” provided substantial assistance under 18 U.S.C. § 2333 merely because it allegedly could have taken more “meaningful” or “aggressive” action to prevent such use; and (2) whether a defendant whose generic, widely available services were not used in connection with the specific “act of international terrorism” that injured the plaintiff may be liable for aiding and abetting under Section 2333.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.scotusblog.com&#x2F;case-files&#x2F;cases&#x2F;gonzalez-v-google-llc&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.scotusblog.com&#x2F;case-files&#x2F;cases&#x2F;gonzalez-v-googl...</a><p>[2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.scotusblog.com&#x2F;case-files&#x2F;cases&#x2F;twitter-inc-v-taamneh&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.scotusblog.com&#x2F;case-files&#x2F;cases&#x2F;twitter-inc-v-ta...</a>

Alright, given the volume of messages on FB, twitter, etc, isn&#x27;t choosing what messages you promote approximately equivalent to publishing anything? I am pretty sure you can find any opinion&#x2F;view on these platforms.