Supreme Court tackles case linked to CSU Long Beach student slain in Paris terror attack

The death of a Cal State Long Beach student, during the 2015 Paris terrorist attacks, is at the center of the Supreme Court’s first case about a federal law that shields Google, Twitter, Facebook and other companies from lawsuits over content posted on their sites.

The justices are hearing arguments Tuesday, Feb. 21, about whether the family of El Monte resident Nohemi Gonzalez can sue Google for helping extremists spread their message and attract new recruits.

The case is the court’s first look at Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, adopted early in the internet age, in 1996, to protect companies from being sued over information their users post online. The law is credited with helping create the modern internet

Lower courts have broadly interpreted the law to protect the industry, which the companies and their allies say has fueled the meteoric growth of the internet and encouraged the removal of harmful content.

But critics argue that the companies have not done nearly enough and that the law should not block lawsuits over the recommendations, generated by computer algorithms, that point viewers to more material that interests them and keeps them online longer.

“Whether Section 230 applies to these algorithm-generated recommendations is of enormous practical importance,” the family argued in an appeal. “Interactive computer services constantly direct such recommendations, in one form or another, at virtually every adult and child in the United States who uses social media.”

Any narrowing of their immunity could have dramatic consequences that could affect every corner of the internet because websites use algorithms to sort and filter a mountain of data.

“Recommendation algorithms are what make it possible to find the needles in humanity’s largest haystack,” Google’s lawyers wrote in their main Supreme Court brief.

In response, the lawyers for the victim’s family questioned the prediction of dire consequences.

“There is,” the lawyers wrote, “no denying that the materials being promoted on social media sites have in fact caused serious harm.”

The lawsuit was filed by the family of Gonzalez, a 23-year-old senior at Cal State Long Beach who was among 17 CSULB students spending a semester Strate College of Design in Paris as part of a study abroad program.

She was killed by Islamic State group gunmen in a series of November 2015 attacks that left 130 people dead in Paris and the nearby suburb of Saint-Denis. The attackers struck cafes outside the French national stadium and inside the Bataclan theater.

Gonzalez, an industrial design major who graduated from Whittier High School, died in an attack at La Belle Equipe bistro. She was the only American who died in the Paris attacks.

During her funeral, which took place at Calvary Chapel in Downey shortly after the Paris attacks, those who knew Gonzalez described her as a beautiful spirit who was always positive and wanted to help others.

“I’m so proud of her,” the student’s father, Reynaldo Gonzalez, said during the December 2015 service, “but still picking up pieces of my heart.”

In May 2016, Gonzalez’s mother and stepfather, Beatriz Gonzalez and Jose Hernandez, accepted the student’s diploma on her behalf. She was also recognized with an Outstanding Graduate Award during the commencement ceremony.

And the design department named its lower division workshop in Gonzalez’s honor. A tribute to Gonzalez also remains up on the design department’s CSULB webpage.

”Nohemi was my student, and she was very special,” David  Teubner wrote in that tribute. “She was someone I knew very well and worked with every day for the last three years. Creative, funny, crazy, warm and wonderful. Involved at every level, she touched all our hearts and minds as a student, classmate and shop assistant.”

The Gonzalez family sued Google, Facebook and Twitter about a month after the 2016 CSULB commencement.

The Gonzalez family, in particular, has accused Google-owned YouTube of aiding and abetting the Islamic State group, also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, by recommending its videos to viewers most likely to be interested in them, in violation of the federal Anti-Terrorism Act.

The companies has repeatedly pushed back on that argument.

Google, in a June 2016 statement, said it “has a strong track record of taking swift action against terrorist content.”

Facebook, meanwhile, said at the time that terrorists or groups that support terrorism have no place on its site.

“If we see evidence of a threat of imminent harm or a terror attack, we reach out to law enforcement,” the company said, adding that “this lawsuit is without merit and we will defend ourselves vigorously.”

And the lower courts sided with Google.

A related case, set for arguments Wednesday, involves a terrorist attack at a nightclub in Istanbul in 2017 that killed 39 people and prompted a lawsuit against Twitter, Facebook and Google.

Separate challenges to social media laws enacted by Republicans in Florida and Texas are pending before the high court, but they will not be argued before the fall and decisions probably won’t come until the first half of 2024.