Gonzalez v. Google LLC
The Supreme Court sidestepped one of the most anticipated legal questions of its term — whether the federal law that protects internet companies from lawsuits over user content shields Google from a terrorism-victim family's claims — and instead sent the case back to a lower court without deciding it.
The Court found that the family's underlying claims appeared to fail for an entirely separate reason, making it unnecessary to weigh in on the internet liability law at the center of the case.
How it got here: A federal district court dismissed the family's lawsuit; the Ninth Circuit affirmed, ruling most claims were barred by Section 230; the Supreme Court agreed to hear the Section 230 question.
The Case in Depth
What happened
Nohemi Gonzalez, a 23-year-old American, was killed in the coordinated ISIS terrorist attacks in Paris in November 2015 that killed 130 people. Her family sued Google, which owns YouTube, arguing that the platform hosted and promoted ISIS recruitment and propaganda videos, and even shared advertising revenue with ISIS — effectively helping the group recruit and fundraise. The family claimed Google bore both direct responsibility and secondary liability for the attack under federal anti-terrorism law.
The question before the Court
Does a law that broadly shields internet companies from lawsuits over user-posted content protect Google from being sued by a terrorism victim's family over ISIS videos hosted on YouTube?
The Court's answer
The Court declined to answer this question. After agreeing specifically to decide how the internet liability law applies here, the Court concluded the family's claims appeared to fail for a separate, threshold reason: the family's secondary-liability allegations were materially identical to claims the Court rejected the same day in a companion case, Twitter v. Taamneh. Because the complaint appeared likely to fail whether or not the internet liability law applied, the Court saw no point in addressing a major statutory question on facts that did not require it.
The Court also noted that the Ninth Circuit's separate, unchallenged rulings had already disposed of the family's revenue-sharing, conspiracy, and direct-liability claims. With little or nothing left of the complaint to save, the case was sent back to the appeals court to reconsider whatever remains in light of the Twitter ruling.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
The landmark internet liability law — Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which shields platforms from most lawsuits over user-generated content — was left untouched. Tech companies retain the same broad legal protection they have relied on for decades. The Gonzalez family's case goes back to the appeals court, where it must now be re-evaluated against the stricter terrorism-liability standard the Court set the same day in a companion case.
What changes now
The case returns to the Ninth Circuit, which must now evaluate whether any of the Gonzalez family's claims can survive under the terrorism-liability standards the Supreme Court set in Twitter v. Taamneh. The Section 230 question — the main reason the Court agreed to hear the case — remains entirely unresolved. That means internet platforms continue to operate under the same broad liability protection they have had for decades, at least until a future case forces the Court to confront the question directly.
What this does not decide
The Court explicitly did not decide whether Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act protects Google — or any internet platform — from lawsuits over hosting or algorithmically recommending terrorist content. That question, which could reshape liability rules for every major online platform, was the primary reason the Court took the case.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court had granted review to decide how Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act — a 1996 law that broadly protects internet platforms from being sued over content posted by their users — applies when a family sues Google for hosting ISIS videos on YouTube. That was the central question both parties briefed and argued.
- Before reaching Section 230, the Court noted it was simultaneously deciding Twitter, Inc. v. Taamneh (598 U.S. 471), a closely related terrorism lawsuit. In that case, the Court held that similar aiding-and-abetting claims against a social media platform failed to state a viable claim under the federal civil anti-terrorism statute, 18 U.S.C. § 2333(d)(2), which allows U.S. nationals harmed by terrorism to sue those who knowingly provided substantial assistance to the perpetrators.
- The family's own lawyers acknowledged at oral argument that their secondary-liability allegations were materially identical to those the Court was rejecting in Twitter. That concession was pivotal: if the same factual theory fails in Twitter, it appears to fail here too, regardless of whether Section 230 is in the picture.
- Separately, the Ninth Circuit's rulings on the revenue-sharing claims — holding that the family had not plausibly alleged Google conspired with ISIS or that Google's acts were intended to intimidate a civilian population — had gone unchallenged. Those disposals covered the family's conspiracy and direct-liability claims.
- Courts generally avoid deciding major, potentially far-reaching legal questions when the case before them can be resolved on other, narrower grounds. With the complaint appearing to state little if any viable claim independent of Section 230, the Court concluded it would be inappropriate to issue a major ruling on the scope of internet liability law on this particular record.
- The Court therefore vacated the Ninth Circuit's judgment — including its Section 230 rulings — and sent the case back for that court to assess whatever remains of the complaint under the framework the Court established in Twitter.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Reaffirms Twitter, Inc. v. Taamneh (598 U.S. 471)
The Court relied on Twitter's holding that similar terrorism-support claims failed, treating it as controlling here.