You're mistaken as to what this ruling is about. Ultimately, when it comes right down to it, the Third Circuit is saying this (directed at social media companies):
"The speech is either wholly your speech or wholly someone else's. You can't have it both ways."
Either they get to act as a common carrier (telephone companies are not liable for what you say on a phone call because it is wholly your own speech and they are merely carrying it) or they act as a publisher (liable for everything said on their platforms because they are exercising editorial control via algorithm). If this ruling is upheld by the Supreme Court, then they will have to choose:
* Either claim the safe harbour protections afforded to common carriers and lose the ability to curate algorithmically
or
* Claim the free speech protections of the First Amendment but be liable for all content as it is their own speech.
Algorithmic libel detectors don't exist. The second option isn't possible. The result will be the separation of search and recommendation engines from social media platforms. Since there's effectively one search company in each national protectionist bloc, the result will be the creation of several new monopolies that hold the power to decide what news is front-page, and what is buried or practically unavailable. In the English-speaking world that right would go to Alphabet.
The second option isn’t really meant for social media anyway. It’s meant for traditional publishers such as newspapers.
If this goes through I don’t think it will be such a big boost for Google search as you suggest. For one thing, it has no effect on OpenAI and other LLM providers. That’s a real problem for Google, as I see a long term trend away from traditional search and towards LLMs for getting questions answered, especially among young people. Also note that YouTube is social media and features a curation algorithm to deliver personalized content feeds.
As for social media, I think we’re better off without it! There’s countless stories in the news about all the damage it’s causing to society. I don’t think we’ll be able to roll all that back but I hope we’ll be able to make things better.
If the ruling was upheld, Google wouldn't gain any new liability for putting a TikTok-like frontend on video search results; the only reason they're not doing it now is that all existing platforms (including YouTube) funnel all the recommendation clicks back into themselves. If YouTube had to stop offering recommendations, Google could take over their user experience and spin them off into a hosting company that derived its revenue from AdSense and its traffic from "Google Shorts."
This ruling is not a ban on algorithms, it's a ban on the vertical integration between search or recommendation and hosting that today makes it possible for search engines other than Google to see traffic.
I actually don't think Google search will be protected in its current form. Google doesn't show you unadulterated search results anymore, they personalize (read: editorialize) the results based on the data they've collected on you, the user. This is why two different people entering the same query can see dramatically different results.
If Google wants to preserve their safe harbour protections they'll need to roll back to a neutral algorithm that delivers the same results to everyone given an identical query. This won't be the end of the world for Google but it will produce lower quality results (at least in the eyes of normal users who aren't annoyed by the personalization). Lower quality results will further open the doors to LLMs as a competitor to search.
And newspapers decide every single word they publish, because they’re liable for it. If a newspaper defames someone they can be sued.
This whole case comes down to having your cake and eating it too. Newspapers don’t have that. They have free speech protections but they aren’t absolved of liability for what they publish. They aren’t protected under section 230.
If the ruling is upheld by SCOTUS, Google will have to choose: section 230 (and no editorial control) or first amendment plus liability for everything they publish on SERPs.
"The speech is either wholly your speech or wholly someone else's. You can't have it both ways."
Either they get to act as a common carrier (telephone companies are not liable for what you say on a phone call because it is wholly your own speech and they are merely carrying it) or they act as a publisher (liable for everything said on their platforms because they are exercising editorial control via algorithm). If this ruling is upheld by the Supreme Court, then they will have to choose:
* Either claim the safe harbour protections afforded to common carriers and lose the ability to curate algorithmically
or
* Claim the free speech protections of the First Amendment but be liable for all content as it is their own speech.