The Supreme Court handed twin victories to technology platforms on Thursday, sidestepping an effort to limit a powerful liability shield for user posts and ruling that a law allowing suits for aiding terrorism did not apply to the ordinary activities of social media companies.
The court’s unanimous decision in one of the cases, Twitter v. Taamneh, No. 21-1496, effectively resolved both cases and allowed the justices to duck difficult questions about the scope of a 1996 law, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.
In a brief, unsigned opinion in the case concerning the liability shield, Gonzalez v. Google, No. 21-1333, the court said it would not “address the application of Section 230 to a complaint that appears to state little, if any, plausible claim for relief.” The court instead returned the case to the appeals court “in light of our decision in Twitter.”
The tech industry cheered the court’s decision to leave untouched Section 230, which it contends has paved…
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