Amicus Briefs

Legal brief as Amicus Curiae et Populi, first published here on October 3, 2023, in the public interest and informally offered to the US Supreme Court re Gonzalez v. Google LLC, 598 U.S. 617 (2023), No. 21-1333,1 and Twitter, Inc. v. Taamneh, 598 U.S. 471 (2023), No. 21-14962 — both decided May 18, 2023. We develop the Section 230 posture of both cases at greater length at /section-230.

Note

This brief was published on this website in lieu of actually filing it with the Court — hence amicus curiae et amicus populi: friend of the court, and friend of the people, offered informally to both rather than lodged on the Court's own docket. Its underlying legal theory — that recommender systems constitute publishing, and that Section 230 should not shield the platforms that build them — was vindicated in August 2026, when a New Mexico court rejected Meta's Section 230 defense and held it liable for a public nuisance caused by its recommender-driven product design. See Meta's Social-Media-Addiction Settlement.

Recommender systems employed by the boost and distribution features of social media constitute PUBLISHING. Avoiding "prior restraints" on freedom of speech, the Court should allow plaintiffs to hold platforms accountable, when they are shown to promote and recommend illegal content. The Court should not grant "social media" platforms an entitlement to immunity, based on an unwarrentedly expansive interpretation of section 230.

We hold with Second Circuit Chief Judge Robert A. Katzmann's dissent in Force v. Facebook, Inc., 934 F.3d 53 (2d Cir. 2019), No. 18-397,3 and with the legal opinion of the X.com content moderation team, holdin that "freedom of speech does not entitle you to freedom of reach". We call on all "social media" platforms to open-source their recommender algorithms, to be held accountable by their own user bases, and to start valuing humanity over profits, and users over advertising revenue. These platforms favor Censoring "misinformation" and goverment disfavored speech, while defending their right to promote violence, obscenity, theft, and defamtion on "free speech" grounds. This is a hypocritical and perverse double standard, and we adjure the Legislature, Courts and the FTC to start regulating these as "common carriers".

A "chilling effect" on illegal speech is desirable, in order give space for legitimate debate to occur.

Written by Jared Essig with 100% natural intelligence.

Related Cases

  • Meta's Social-Media-Addiction Settlement — the up-to-$18B multistate settlement and New Mexico's separate $942M judgment, including a court ruling that Section 230 does not shield Meta from liability for its recommender-driven product design.
  • Timeline: State AGs v. Meta — the docket-sourced timeline of that case, from the 2021 investigation to the August 2026 settlement.

Citations

  1. Cornell LII · CourtListener · Wikipedia ↩

  2. Cornell LII · CourtListener · Wikipedia ↩

  3. CourtListener · Wikipedia. No Cornell LII link: Cornell's Legal Information Institute hosts Supreme Court and U.S. Code text, not circuit court opinions, so there is nothing there to link to for a Second Circuit case. ↩