Enlarge (credit: Bloomberg / Contributor | Bloomberg )

Today the United States Supreme Court quashed tech industry fears that the nation's highest court might ruin the Internet by deciding that platforms should be held liable for recommending third-party content that has long been protected by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.

In a pair of rulings, the Supreme Court found that plaintiffs failed to state a claim when arguing that online platforms like YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook should be held liable for aiding and abetting the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terrorist enterprise by recommending terrorist content ahead of attacks. As a result, both cases, Twitter v. Taamneh and Gonzalez v. Google , have been remanded to a lower court, and at least for now, the Section 230 immunity shield remains fully intact.

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas delivered the opinion in the Twitter case. He concluded that allegations that Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube knew for years that "ISIS was using their platforms but failed to stop it from doing so" were "insufficient"—even without considering Section 230 protections—to establish that the social platforms aided and abetted a specific 2017 terrorist attack on the Reina nightclub in Istanbul, Turkey. That attack, carried out for ISIS by Abdulkadir Masharipov, killed 39 victims and injured another 69.

Enlarge / Attorney Eric Schnapper speaks to reporters outside of the US Supreme Court following oral arguments for the case Twitter v. Taamneh on February 22, 2023, in Washington, DC. (credit: Anna Moneymaker / Staff | Getty Images North America )

Today it was Twitter’s turn to argue before the Supreme Court in another case this week that experts fear could end up weakening Section 230 protections for social networks hosting third-party content. In Twitter v. Taamneh , the Supreme Court must decide if under the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorists Act (JASTA), online platforms should be held liable for aiding and abetting terrorist organizations that are known to be using their services to recruit fighters and plan attacks.

After close to three hours of arguments, justices still appear divided on how to address the complicated question, and Twitter's defense was not as strong as some justices seemingly thought it could be.

Twitter attorney Seth Waxman argued that the social network and other defendants, Google and Meta, should not be liable under JASTA, partly because the act of providing the same general services—which anyone on their platforms can access—does not alone constitute providing substantial assistance to an individual planning a terrorist attack.