Imagine a future internet where you are no longer free to comment on news articles, whether or not you agree with the underlying message of the article.

Before the Supreme Court is a case where a family has sued Google – the parent company of YouTube – because their daughter was killed due to ISIS recruitment videos on YouTube.

If the Supreme Court rules in favor of the family, it would hold websites responsible for the online behavior of its users. It would mean if a Twitter user is subjected to bullying and commits suicide, Twitter would be held legally responsuible and would be subject to lawsuits out the wazoo, and possibly causing Twitter to face millions – if not billions – of dollars in legal restitution.

So how would websites be forced to ensure that they would not be held responsible due to the actions of its users?

It would pressure online news sites to disable commenting sections for their articles, meaning that you would not be allowed to contest the viewpoints of the article or your your support for the viewpoints of the article.

For online news sites which choose to allow comments – as well as social media sites which allow people to post their own content, tt could force websites and social media websites to add draconial provisions to their terms of service. It could result in “one strike, you’re out” automatic bans for any and all violation of their ToS.

It would also add even further scrutiny to websites such as Infowars, especially if commenters get into a flame war ending in a stupid idiot ending the conversation with inflammatory responses such as “you should have been aborted when you were in your mother’s womb” or “you should have been in the World Trade Center on 9/11.”

Years ago, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals had a blog post comparing al-Qaeda to animal slaughterhouses. Within weeks of me posting about al-Qaeda’s connections to the CIA – as well as me questioning the official narrative of 9/11, PETA shut down comments on ALL blog posts.

If the Supreme Court rules in favor of the family, it will result in a crushing blow to free speech on the internet.

What next? Will ISPs be the next to be held responsible? Will they be forced to spy on their users’ activities, curtail free speech, and ban their users for fear that their speech could result in the next false-flag terrorist attack or false-flag mass shooting?