STF Narrows Platform Immunity and Backs 60‑Day Transition for Big Techs

Overview

• In hearings on June 10–11 the Supreme Court largely preserved its June 2025 thesis but issued clarifications through relator Dias Toffoli’s vote that include a 60‑day compliance window and lighter rules for non‑economic, neutral providers.
• The Court kept an exceptions‑based regime that lets victims or their representatives send extrajudicial removal notices for defined serious harms and treats failure to act after notice as a basis for civil liability under a rebuttable presumption of fault.
• Toffoli’s draft narrows some wording, defines ‘presumption of relative fault,’ limits the strictest ‘duty of care’ to large platforms with algorithmic amplification, and reserves immediate removal for particularly grave crimes such as child sexual exploitation and terrorism.
• Big techs asked the Court to require final judgments before liability, to limit liability to ‘manifestly’ illicit content and to set clearer evidentiary rules for notices while the federal executive in May 2026 issued decrees that already align regulation with the Court’s approach.
• The judgment remains open with more ministerial votes to come and a majority forming around the 60‑day transition, a result that will push faster takedowns, more transparency reporting, and new rounds of litigation and regulatory disputes until Congress acts.