Nohemi, or Mimi to her family, worked hard for years to go to college, which was more than anything she set her mind to, Gonzalez said. She was his only daughter.
“I was hurt, I was in a bubble,” he said in an interview with The Washington Post.
When lawyers from an Israeli law center that specializes in suing companies that support terrorists asked if he was interested in launching a lawsuit related to his daughter’s death, he said that yes, hope this is a way to honor Nohemi’s memory.
Now, eight years after Nohemi’s murder, Gonzalez is in Washington, preparing to see the case argued before the Supreme Court. The Israeli law center, a nonprofit called Shurat Hadin, which translates from Hebrew as “letter of the law,” has spent years suing tech companies for hosting propaganda and recruiting messages. from terrorist and militant organizations. They usually lose.
In 2017, the Gonzalez family and lawyers filed their lawsuit, arguing that Google’s YouTube video site violated the US Anti-Terrorism Act by promoting Islamic State propaganda videos with recommendation algorithms. . Google said the case was without merit because the law protects internet companies from liability for content posted by their users. Lower courts sided with Google, but the family appealed, and last October the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case.
The Supreme Court’s decision could have major consequences for the internet as we know it and the tech giants that dominate it. For nearly three decades, Section 230, the provision of the law at the heart of the Supreme Court case, has protected internet companies from liability for content posted by their users, allowing on platforms like Facebook and YouTube to grow into the cultural and commercial behemoths they are today.
Proponents argue that the law is essential to a free and open internet, giving companies the space to allow users to freely post what they want, while also giving them the ability to policy on their platforms as they see fit, preventing them from being flooded with spam or harassment. Critics of the law say it gives tech companies a pass to avoid responsibility or engage in unfair censorship. Seventy-nine outside companies, trade organizations, politicians and non-profits submitted arguments in the case.
Gonzalez said he never expected the case to happen can be very important.
“I can’t believe now that I’m here in Washington and about to go to court,” he said.
José Castañeda, a Google spokesman, declined to comment on the case but pointed to a January blog post from Google general counsel Halimah Delaine Prado.
The court’s decision “will change the way Americans use the internet,” said Delaine Prado. The amendment to Section 230 could make it harder for companies to use algorithms to recommend any content, from Spotify songs to items from small businesses to e-commerce platforms like Etsy , he said.
YouTube’s policies prohibit terrorist content, but the company’s moderation algorithms often miss new video uploads.
Gonzalez immigrated to the US from Mexico in 1989, settling in Whittier, a majority-Hispanic suburb of Los Angeles that was once home to Richard M. Nixon. Gonzalez gave birth to Nohemi three years later. When she was four years old, Gonzalez said, Nohemi knew she wanted to go to college. While her mother saved money working 13-hour days as a hairdresser, Nohemi spent her time reading, going to school and participating in various sports including swimming, soccer and track. and fields.
“Anything he could participate in, he participated in,” Gonzalez said. Nohemi graduated from high school and left home to attend California State University in Long Beach’s industrial design program.
“We are very close but at the same time he is independent and self sufficient and he has his own life at a very young age,” said Gonzalez.
A YouTube video posted seven months before his death shows Nohemi presenting at a design fair, showing a light fixture inspired by “the majestic views from the shores of Southern California, the Grand Canyon and the Moab Arches.” He talked about his passion for design and told the audience how lucky he feels to be able to do what he loves.
“There are many people who go through life, they don’t find their passion. I feel lucky because not many people get a higher education. We have to follow what we love and do it every day ,” Nohemi said in the video.
In college, Nohemi worked as a teacher’s assistant, and her mother believed that her true dream was to stay in academia and become a professor of design, sharing what she loved with other students.
“He was in his soul, he always wanted to teach,” Gonzalez said.
Nohemi also found time in college to run, hike, surf and travel, her mother said.
“He took me to Catalina Island one time for my birthday, he’s always on the move,” Gonzalez said. “He was very happy because it was his dream to go to Paris and he did it, he fulfilled his dream.”
Lawyers for the Gonzalez family focused their argument on YouTube’s recommendation algorithms, which choose which videos certain users see on the video site. By specifically recommending Islamic State videos, YouTube is overstepping the bounds of what is protected under Section 230, they argue.
Part of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, Section 230 is credited with helping the rise of tech giants thanks to its protections. But it has also been criticized as outdated, written before much of the world became dependent on the internet. And while it’s one of the few bipartisan issues in Congress, efforts to change it have failed.
A day after the Supreme Court heard Gonzalez’s case, the justices will hear a related case, brought by family members of victims of terrorist attacks who are suing social media companies. for hosting Islamic State content.
Google, other tech companies and a raft of internet freedom organizations all argue that cutting back the protections offered by Section 230 would have an almost apocalyptic effect on the internet.
“The stake could not be higher,” Delaine Prado, the Google general counsel said in a blog post. “A decision that weakens Section 230 will make websites remove potentially controversial material or turn a blind eye to objectionable content to avoid awareness of it.”
And there may be other consequences. YouTube and other social media sites rely on user-generated content to populate their platforms and drive audiences to display profitable ads. Companies can also be drowned in lawsuits by people who disagree with a company’s decision to allow or disallow a particular piece of content to be published.
Attorneys for the Gonzalez family say the concerns are overblown. For them it’s simple: The largest and most profitable companies in the world should not be allowed to recommend terrorist content, and should be held accountable for it when they do.
There is no difference in a bank that manages the transfer of money between terrorist groups, said Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, president and founder of Shurat HaDin. Section 230 may have made sense when it was passed, but companies have grown into behemoths that need to be held accountable, he said.
“Twenty-five years later, the picture is different. They have algorithms, they have tools and they use content for their business model,” Darshan-Leitner said. “This is why it is time to reconsider Section 230.”
He founded the organization in the early 2000s and has led cases against several banks, companies and countries. Shurat Hadin says it has won more than $2 billion in verdicts and obtained hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation for victims of violent terrorist attacks. The organization is entirely funded by private donations, and receives no money from the state of Israel or other governments, Darshan-Leitner said.
In 2015, the organization sued Facebook for hosting social media posts, messages and memes that it said encouraged Palestinian youths to attack Israeli citizens. It filed a separate lawsuit against the social media giant on behalf of three terror victims a year ago. Both cases were eventually dismissed.
A member of the Los Angeles Jewish community familiar with Shurat Hadin’s work initially connected the group to the Gonzalez family, Darshan-Leitner said.
For Gonzalez, the important thing is to remember her daughter, and try to find ways that her memory can bring positive change. One of his sons has his own daughter now, named after his sister.
Nohemi’s energy and desire to experience life still motivates her to this day, Gonzalez said.
“I worked 12, 13, 14 hours a day at the barber shop and he would go here and there with school friends,” he said. “We learned from him. Now we’re trying to relax a little bit and be like him.”
