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People walk past a billboard advertisement for YouTube on September 27, 2019 in Berlin, Germany.

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The Department of Justice warned the Supreme Court against an overly broad interpretation of a law shielding social media companies from liability for what users post on their platforms, a position that undermines Google’s defense in a case that could reshape the role of content moderation on digital platforms.

In a brief filed Wednesday led by DOJ Acting Solicitor General Brian Fletcher, the agency said the Supreme Court should vacate an appeals court ruling that found Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act protected Google from being liable under U.S. antiterrorism law.

Section 230 allows for online platforms to engage in good-faith content moderation while shielding them from being held responsible for their users’ posts. Tech platforms argue it’s a critical protection, especially for smaller platforms that could otherwise face costly legal battles since the nature of social media platforms makes it difficult to quickly catch every harmful post.

But the law has been a hot-button issue in Congress as lawmakers on both sides of the aisle argue the liability shield should be drastically limited. But while many Republicans believe the content moderation allowances of the law should be trimmed down to reduce what they allege is censorship of conservative voices, many Democrats instead take issue with how the law can protect platforms that host misinformation and hate speech.

The Supreme Court case known as Gonzalez v. Google was brought by family members of American citizen Nohemi Gonzalez, who was killed in a 2015 terrorist attack for which ISIS claimed responsibility. The suit alleges Google’s YouTube did not adequately stop ISIS from distributing content on the video-sharing site to aid its propaganda and recruitment efforts.

The plaintiffs pursued charges against Google under the Antiterrorism Act of 1990, which allows U.S. nationals injured by terrorism to seek damages. The law was updated in 2016 to add secondary civil liability to “any person who aids and abets, by knowingly providing substantial assistance” to “an act of international terrorism.”

Gonzalez’s family claims YouTube did not do enough to prevent ISIS from using its platform to spread its message. They allege that even though YouTube has policies against terrorist content, it failed to adequately monitor the platform or block ISIS from using it.

Both the district and appeals courts agreed that Section 230 protects Google from liability for hosting the content.

Though it did not take a position on whether Google should ultimately be found liable, the DOJ recommended the appeals court ruling be vacated and returned to the lower court for further review. The agency argued that while Section 230 would bar the plaintiffs’ claims based on YouTube’s alleged failure to block ISIS videos from its site, “the statute does not bar claims based on YouTube’s alleged targeted recommendations of ISIS content.”

The DOJ argued the appeals court was correct to find Section 230 shielded YouTube from liability for allowing ISIS-affiliated users to post videos since it did not act as a publisher by editing or creating the videos. But, it said, the claims about “YouTube’s use of algorithms and related features to recommend ISIS content require a different analysis.” The DOJ said the appeals court did not adequately consider whether the plaintiffs’ claims could merit liability under that theory and as a result, the Supreme Court should return the case to the appeals court so it can do so.

“Through the years, YouTube has invested in technology, teams, and policies to identify and remove extremist content,” Google spokesperson José Castañeda said in a statement. “We regularly work with law enforcement, other platforms, and civil society to share intelligence and best practices. Undercutting Section 230 would make it harder, not easier, to combat harmful content — making the internet less safe and less helpful for all of us.”

Chamber of Progress, an industry group that counts Google as one of its corporate partners, warned the DOJ’s brief invites a dangerous precedent.

“The Solicitor General’s stance would hinder platforms’ ability to recommend facts over lies, help over harm, and empathy over hate,” Chamber of Progress CEO Adam Kovacevich said in a statement. “If the Supreme Court rules for Gonzalez, platforms wouldn’t be able to recommend help for those considering self-harm, reproductive health information for women considering abortions, and accurate election information for people who want to vote. This would unleash a flood of lawsuits from trolls and haters unhappy about the platforms’ efforts to create safe, healthy online communities.”

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Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer says, as shareholder, tariffs are ‘not good’

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Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer says, as shareholder, tariffs are 'not good'

President Trump’s new tariffs on goods that the U.S. imports from over 100 countries will have an effect on consumers, former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer told CNBC on Friday. Investors will feel the pain, too.

Microsoft’s stock dropped almost 6% in the past two days, as the Nasdaq wrapped up its worst week in five years.

“As a Microsoft shareholder, this kind of thing is not good,” Ballmer said, in an interview with Andrew Ross Sorkin that was tied to Microsoft’s 50th anniversary celebration. “It creates opportunity to be a serious, long-term player.”

Ballmer was sandwiched in between Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and current CEO Satya Nadella for the interview.

“I took just enough economics in college — that tariffs are actually going to bring some turmoil,” said Ballmer, who was succeeded by Nadella in 2014. Gates, Microsoft’s first CEO, convinced Ballmer to join the company in 1980.

Gates, Ballmer and Nadella attended proceedings at Microsoft’s Redmond, Washington, campus on Friday to celebrate its first half-century.

Between the tariffs and weak quarterly revenue guidance announced in January, Microsoft’s stock is on track for its fifth straight month of declines, which would be the worst stretch since 2009. But the company remains a leader in the PC operating system and productivity software markets, and its partnership with startup OpenAI has led to gains in cloud computing.

“I think that disruption is very hard on people, and so the decision to do something for which disruption was inevitable, that needs a lot of popular support, and nobody could game theorize exactly who is going to do what in response,” Ballmer said, regarding the tariffs. “So, I think citizens really like stability a lot. And I hope people — individuals who will feel this, because people are feeling it, not just the stock market, people are going to feel it.”

Ballmer, who owns the Los Angeles Clippers, is among Microsoft’s biggest fans. He said he’s the company’s largest investor. In 2014, shortly after he bought the basketball team for $2 billion, he held over 333 million shares of the stock, according to a regulatory filing.

“I’m not going to probably have 50 more years on the planet,” he said. “But whatever minutes I have, I’m gonna be a large Microsoft shareholder.” He said there’s a bright future for computing, storage and intelligence. Microsoft launched the first Azure services while Ballmer was CEO.

Earlier this week Bloomberg reported that Microsoft, which pledged to spend $80 billion on AI-enabled data center infrastructure in the current fiscal year, has stopped discussions or pushed back the opening of facilities in the U.S. and abroad.

JPMorgan Chase’s chief economist, Bruce Kasman, said in a Thursday note that the chance of a global recession will be 60% if Trump’s tariffs kick in as described. His previous estimate was 40%.

“Fifty years from now, or 25 years from now, what is the one thing you can be guaranteed of, is the world needs more compute,” Nadella said. “So I want to keep those two thoughts and then take one step at a time, and then whatever are the geopolitical or economic shifts, we’ll adjust to it.”

Gates, who along with co-founder Paul Allen, sought to build a software company rather than sell both software and hardware, said he wasn’t sure what the economic effects of the tariffs will be. Today, most of Microsoft’s revenue comes from software. It also sells Surface PCs and Xbox consoles.

“So far, it’s just on goods, but you know, will it eventually be on services? Who knows?” said Gates, who reportedly donated around $50 million to a nonprofit that supported Democratic nominee Kamala Harris’ losing campaign.

— CNBC’s Alex Harring contributed to this report.

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AppLovin can offer TikTok ‘much stronger bid than others,’ CEO says

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AppLovin can offer TikTok 'much stronger bid than others,' CEO says

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AppLovin CEO Adam Foroughi provided more clarity on the ad-tech company’s late-stage effort to acquire TikTok, calling his offer a “much stronger bid than others” on CNBC’s The Exchange Friday afternoon.

Foroughi said the company is proposing a merger between AppLovin and the entire global business of TikTok, characterizing the deal as a “partnership” where the Chinese could participate in the upside while AppLovin would run the app.

“If you pair our algorithm with the TikTok audience, the expansion on that platform for dollars spent will be through the roof,” Foroughi said.

The news comes as President Trump announced he would extend the deadline a second time for TikTok’s Chinese-owned parent company ByteDance to sell the U.S. subsidiary of TikTok to an American buyer or face an effective ban on U.S. app stores. The new deadline is now in June, which, as Foroughi described, “buys more time to put the pieces together” on AppLovin’s bid. 

“The president’s a great dealmaker — we’re proposing, essentially an enhancement to the deal that they’ve been working on, but a bigger version of all the deals contemplated,” he added.

AppLovin faces a crowded field of other interested U.S. backers, including Amazon, Oracle, billionaire Frank McCourt and his Project Liberty consortium, and numerous private equity firms. Some proposals reportedly structure the deal to give a U.S. buyer 50% ownership of the company, rather than a complete acquisition. The Chinese government will still need to approve the deal, and AppLovin’s interest in purchasing TikTok in “all markets outside of China” is “preliminary,” according to an April 3 SEC filing.

Correction: A prior version of this story incorrectly characterized China’s ongoing role in TikTok should AppLovin acquire the app.

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Trump’s tariff rates for other countries radically larger than World Trade data

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Trump's tariff rates for other countries radically larger than World Trade data

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during an event announcing new tariffs in the Rose Garden at the White House in Washington, April 2, 2025.

Chip Somodevilla | Getty Images

President Donald Trump announced an aggressive, far-reaching “reciprocal tariff” policy this week, leaving many economists and U.S. trade partners to question how the White House calculated its rates.

Trump’s plan established a 10% baseline tariff on almost every country, though many nations such as China, Vietnam and Taiwan are subject to much steeper rates. At a ceremony in the Rose Garden on Wednesday, Trump held up a poster board that outlined the tariffs that it claims are “charged” to the U.S., as well as the “discounted” reciprocal tariffs that America would implement in response.

Those reciprocal tariffs are mostly about half of what the Trump administration said each country has charged the U.S. The poster suggests China charges a tariff of 67%, for instance, and that the U.S. will implement a 34% reciprocal tariff in response.

However, a report from the Cato Institute suggests the trade-weighted average tariff rates in most countries are much different than the figures touted by the Trump administration. The report is based on trade-weighted average duty rates from the World Trade Organization in 2023, the most recent year available.

The Cato Institute says the 2023 trade-weighted average tariff rate from China was 3%. Similarly, the administration says the EU charges the U.S. a tariff of 39%, while the 2023 trade-weighted average tariff rate was 2.7%, according to the report.

In India, the Trump administration claims that a 52% tariff is charged against the U.S., but Cato found that the 2023 trade-weighted average tariff rate was 12%.

Many users on social media this week were quick to notice that the U.S. appeared to have divided the trade deficit by imports from a given country to arrive at tariff rates for individual countries. It’s an unusual approach, as it suggests that the U.S. factored in the trade deficit in goods but ignored trade in services.

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative briefly explained its approach in a release, and stated that computing the combined effects of tariff, regulatory, tax and other policies in various countries “can be proxied by computing the tariff level consistent with driving bilateral trade deficits to zero.”

If trade deficits are persistent because of tariff and non-tariff policies and fundamentals, then the tariff rate consistent with offsetting these policies and fundamentals is reciprocal and fair,” the USTR said in the release.

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