Professor Olivier Sylvain was quoted in The New York Times in an article on Section 230 reform and online speech.
Stuart Force says he found solace on Facebook after his son was stabbed to death in Israel by a member of the militant group Hamas in 2016. He turned to the site to read hundreds of messages offering condolences on his son’s page.But only a few months later, Mr. Force had decided that Facebook was partly to blame for the death, because the algorithms that power the social network helped spread Hamas’s content. He joined relatives of other terror victims in suing the company, arguing that its algorithms aided the crimes by regularly amplifying posts that encouraged terrorist attacks.…“Amplification and automated decision-making systems are creating opportunities for connection that are otherwise not possible,” said Olivier Sylvain, a professor of law at Fordham University, who has made the argument in the context of civil rights. “They’re materially contributing to the content.”