DOJ undermines Google in Supreme Court case over who’s responsible for social media posts
People walk past a billboard advertisement for YouTube on September 27, 2019 in Berlin, Germany.
Sean Gallup | Getty Images
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.”
WATCH: The messy business of content moderation on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube
Jared Isaacman, U.S. President Donald Trump’s nominee to be administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) testifies during a Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., U.S., April 9, 2025.
Ken Cedeno | Reuters
President Donald Trump has renominated Jared Isaacman to run NASA after pulling his prior nomination months ago due to what the president called a “thorough review of prior associations.”
“Jared’s passion for Space, astronaut experience, and dedication to pushing the boundaries of exploration, unlocking the mysteries of the universe, and advancing the new Space economy, make him ideally suited to lead NASA into a bold new Era,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social on Tuesday.
Isaacman, who is friends with Tesla CEO Elon Musk, was originally picked to lead NASA in December, before Trump had even taken office. Isaacman is a billionaire who founded payments company Shift4 and has led two private spaceflights.
But Trump pulled the nomination in late May after a spat between the president and Musk, who had been leading a White House effort to slash the size of the federal government. Trump said at the time that he was withdrawing the pick because of Isaacman’s past associations, though he didn’t specify what those were. Some reports have suggested that it was a reference to Isaacman’s prior donations to Democrats.
Days after the withdrawal, Isaacman told Shift4 investors in a letter that his “brief stint in politics was a thrilling experience.” He also said that he was resigning as CEO of Shift4, which he founded in 1999 at age 16, and would assume the role of executive chairman. He had been planning to leave the company if his nomination was confirmed by the Senate. But it never got that far.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has been running NASA as interim head since July.
Isaacman still must go through the Senate confirmation process. The federal government has been shut down since the beginning of October, but the Senate is still able to confirm presidential nominees.
Charles Liang, CEO of Super Micro Computer Inc., during the Computex conference in Taipei, Taiwan, on June 5, 2024.
Annabelle Chih | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Super Micro Computer shares plunged as much as 10% in extended trading on Tuesday after the server maker issued weaker-than-expected results for the fiscal first quarter.
Here’s how the company did in comparison with analyst estimates compiled by LSEG:
- Earnings per share: 35 cents adjusted vs. 40 cents expected
- Revenue: $5.02 billion vs. $6 billion expected
Revenue fell 15% from $5.94 billion a year ago, Super Micro said in a statement. The report comes about two weeks after Super Micro issued preliminary earnings and said it expected revenue of $5 billion for the quarter, down from prior guidance of $6 billion to $7 billion.
Net income fell by more than half to $168.3 million, or 26 cents a share, from $424.3 million, or 67 cents a share, a year earlier.
In its partial report last month, Super Micro said “design win upgrades” pushed some expected first-quarter revenue to the second quarter. The company said it now expects sales of $10 billion to $11 billion in the current quarter, above the $7.83 billion average estimate, according to LSEG.
Super Micro has been a big beneficiary of the artificial intelligence boom, as its servers come packed with graphics processing units from Nvidia. But after growth soared from late 2023 through last year, the business has flatlined, with some analysts saying that Dell has taken market share.
Prior to Tuesday’s report, the stock was up 55% for the year.
AMD CEO Lisa Su speaks at a Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee hearing in Washington on May 8, 2025. The leaders of some of the biggest technology and artificial intelligence companies will go to Congress on Thursday with a wish list of sorts that at its top has doing away with regulation they say inhibits their firms’ growth and by default, sends business to China.
Nathan Howard | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Advanced Micro Devices reported fiscal third-quarter results that exceeded Wall Street expectations, but gave margin guidance was inline with estimates. The stock slipped in extended trading.
Here’s how the company did in comparison with LSEG consensus:
- Earnings per share: $1.20 adjusted vs. $1.16 expected
- Revenue: $9.25 billion vs. $8.74 billion expected
Revenue increased 36% from a year earlier in the fiscal third quarter, which ended on Sept. 27, according to a statement.
Net income climbed to $1.24 billion, or 75 cents per share, from $771 million, or 47 cents per share, a year earlier.
For the fourth quarter, AMD expects about $9.6 billion in revenue, implying 25% growth. That’s above LSEG’s $9.15 billion consensus. AMD sees an adjusted gross margin of 54.5% for the quarter, meeting StreetAccount’s consensus of 54.5%.
AMD, which is trying to keep pace with Nvidia in the market for artificial intelligence processors, said the guidance does not include revenue from shipments of its Instinct MI308 chips to China. Executives said the same thing last quarter.
As of Tuesday’s close, AMD shares were up 107% so far this year, while the Nasdaq is up 21%.
AMD reached a deal with OpenAI last month that could see the AI startup company take a 10% stake in the chipmaker. OpenAI will deploy 6 gigawatts of AMD’s Instinct graphics processing units over multiple years and across multiple generations of hardware, the companies said, beginning with an initial 1-gigawatt rollout of chips in the second half of next year.
For years OpenAI and other companies relied on graphics chips from Nvidia for running large-scale AI models.
Also in October, Oracle announced plans to deploy 50,000 AMD Instinct MI450 AI chips in its cloud starting next year.
AMD’s data center business, which includes standard central processing units and GPUs for AI, generated $4.34 billion in fiscal third-quarter revenue, up 22%. Analysts polled by StreetAccount were looking for $4.13 billion.
Client revenue reached $2.75 billion, which was up 46% and more than StreetAccount’s $2.61 billion consensus. Revenue from gaming totaled $1.30 billion, up 181%. StreetAccount’s consensus was $1.05 billion.
Amazon, a key cloud customer for AMD, disclosed in a Tuesday filing that it had sold all 822,234 of its AMD shares as of Sept. 30. Amazon built the position sometime in the first quarter.
Executives will discuss the results with analysts on a conference call starting at 5 p.m. ET.
This is developing news. Please check back for updates.
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