The first hearings in the case were held in the US Supreme Court, which may become a precedent for Internet companies. Reynaldo Gonzalez, the father of one of the victims of terrorist attacks in Paris, accuses Google that it allowed the Islamic State terrorist organization (prohibited in the Russian Federation) to recruit new supporters.
In November 2015, a series of terrorist acts occurred on the territory of Paris and its suburbs, which killed 130 people. In one of the terrorist attacks by Reynaldo, Gonzalez lost his daughter Noemi. В 2016 году он подал иск Against Google and other Internet companies, accusing them that they allowed members of the Islamic State (forbidden in the Russian Federation) to distribute extremist ideas on social networks, as well as recruiting new supporters and getting funding.
The father of the deceased girl believes that Google is responsible for the fact that YouTube algorithms developed by the company’s employees issued users in the list of recommendations of the Video from the Islamic State (prohibited in the Russian Federation), which contradicts the laws of the United States to combat the aiding terrorists.
The trial between Gonzalez and Google has been going on for six and a half years. The lower authorities took the side of Google, referring to the section of the 230th US Law on Ethics in the field of communication of 1996, which exempts the IT company from liability for content placed by users on their platforms. In particular, it says that “neither the provider nor the user of the interactive computer service should be considered by the court as a written or oral supplier of any information that was provided by another supplier of information products.”
The plaintiff believes that this law should not apply to algorithms, since they are created by companies, and not users of online platforms.