Is Google News legally liable for bias against conservatives?

By David Wojick | October 5th, 2019 | Civil Rights, Technology |3  Comments

I recently wrote that Google News should be sued for bias against conservative sources, not regulated. Regulating Internet news aggregators is the last thing we want, but Google News is clearly doing something wrong, that needs to be corrected.

To further this line of thought, here is a specific legal argument for the Courts to order Google News to stop discriminating. The Courts might even impose penalties for past discrimination. The Federal Trade Commission could bring such a suit, as could the users of Google News. Mind you I am not an expert on this stuff, hence the question mark in the title.

We are looking for new law so should look at first principles. I posit a variation on the product liability principle called the implied warrant of merchantability. This says the product should work. It is a fundamental principle of product liability law.

As I understand the history of this legal principle, it goes like this. (I am sure this is greatly simplified and I hope the product liability lawyers will forgive me.) A new car malfunctioned, killing the driver. The family sued the car maker, but they argued that the family had no contract with them, just with the dealer they bought the car from. They had received no money from the purchaser.........To Read More..............