'Watched my father die': Tech firms face ire over legal shield
Poring over family photographs, Jessica Watt Dougherty voices anguish over her father's death -- which she attributes to misinformation on an online platform, an issue at the heart of a knotty US debate over tech regulation.
The US Supreme Court will this week hear high-stakes cases that will determine the fate of Section 230, a decades-old legal provision that shields platforms from lawsuits over content posted by their users.
The cases, which are among several legal battles nationwide to regulate internet content, could hobble platforms and significantly reset the doctrines governing online speech if they are stripped of their legal immunity.
"I watched my father die over the screen of my phone," Dougherty, an Ohio-based school counselor, told AFP.
Her father, 64-year-old Randy Watt, refused to get vaccinated and died alone in a hospital last year after struggling with Covid-19.
After his death, his family discovered that he had a secret virtual life on Gab, a far-right platform that observers call a petri dish of misinformation and conspiracy theories.
To his vaccinated family members, his Gab activities explained why he chose not to get inoculated against Covid-19, a decision that ultimately had fatal consequences.
The influence of vaccine misinformation on Gab was also apparent after Watt drove himself to the hospital and started what his family called an "illness log," documenting to his followers how he treated himself for the coronavirus.
He wrote that he was on drugs such as ivermectin, which US health regulators say is ineffective, and in some instances dangerous, to use as a treatment for Covid-19. Gab, which has millions of followers, is rife with posts promoting ivermectin.
"I feel very, very strongly that the
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