The recent Supreme Court decision on online platforms’ liability for user content has been viewed by Ripple as a potential boost for their ongoing legal battle
Stuart Alderoty, Ripple’s general counsel, underscored the importance of the Supreme Court’s recent Twitter ruling that protects online platforms from liability for user content in his recent Twitter thread.
This decision left Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act untouched, a statute that provides online platforms with immunity from liability for third-party content. The unanimous ruling emphasized that social media platforms are not much different from other digital technologies.
As reported by U.Today, Alderoty recently criticized the SEC’s interpretation of its own 1946 Supreme Court case, the “Howey Test,” which establishes a framework for identifying whether certain transactions qualify as “investment contracts,”
According to Alderoty, the Howey test carries the “soil” of common law, meaning it is grounded in traditional legal principles and precedents, but it must be adapted to account for new types of agreements and technologies, such as blockchain and digital assets.
The Supreme Court’s decision in the Twitter case supported this idea of adaptation by ruling that online platforms should not be held liable for user content based on existing laws. In Ripple’s view, this supports their argument that laws and their interpretation need to evolve with changing realities, and in their specific case, that XRP should not be classified as a security under the current interpretation of the Howey Test.
The implications of the Supreme Court’s ruling on the Ripple case are not yet fully clear, but Alderoty’s comments suggest that the company sees it as a positive development, offering hope in their ongoing battle against the SEC.