Hawley Urges Supreme Court to Hear Section 230 Case and Clarify Scope of Big Tech’s Liability

Hawley Urges Supreme Court to Hear Section 230 Case and Clarify Scope of Big Tech's Liability

Friday, March 13, 2026

WASHINGTON - U.S. Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) filed an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to hear an appeal in Doe v. X Corp., a case in which the Ninth Circuit held that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act absolved X, formerly known as Twitter, from civil liability even though the social media platform knowingly hosted child sexual abuse material (CSAM). Senator Hawley argued that lower courts have distorted Section 230 far beyond its original purpose, extending what was intended as a narrow protection for good-faith content moderation into a blanket shield for social media platforms that knowingly host criminal material.

Senator Hawley insisted that Section 230 removed only publisher liability, which does not absolve social media companies of knowingly hosting unlawful content. The Ninth Circuit's interpretation also effectively nullifies civil remedies that Congress provided to victims of child sexual exploitation.

Without intervention from the Supreme Court, the proliferation of child sexual abuse material online will continue to go unchecked. Building on revelations from Senator Hawley's recent hearing on human trafficking with Tim Tebow, Senator Hawley noted in the brief that the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children's CyberTipline received-in 2024 alone-more than 20 million reports from electronic service providers containing over 62 million files related to child sexual exploitation.

Senator Hawley is urging the Supreme Court to clarify Section 230's scope and restore accountability for social media platforms that knowingly host criminal content.

Read the full amicus brief here.

Senator Hawley has been leading the fight to get Big Tech companies to remove child sexual abuse material from their platforms. Earlier this month, he sent a letter to Alphabet Chief Executive Officer, Sundar Pichai, informing the company that his Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism is opening an investigation into the role that Big Tech plays in the proliferation of child sexual abuse material.

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