The Supreme Court’s conservative majority seemed sympathetic Monday to an evangelical Christian graphic artist from Colorado who does not want to create wedding websites for same-sex couples, despite the state’s protective anti-discrimination law.

Those justices seemed amenable to businesswoman Lorie Smith’s argument that the state may not compel her to create speech that violates her religious belief that marriage is only between a man and a woman. But several appeared to be looking for ways to narrow their decision, saying both sides in the dispute agreed, for example, that not all wedding vendors should receive such exemptions.

The court came to Monday’s argument equipped with hypotheticals — mall Santas who might refuse to take photographs with minority children, political speechwriters who might be forced to write for the opposition, newspapers or websites told they could not choose which wedding announcements to publish.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson brought up the mall Santa, wondering whether a photographer who wanted to create the ambiance of the movie “It’s a Wonderful Life” might be able to exclude Black children.

PARK CITY, Utah (AP) — A new documentary looks into the sexual misconduct allegations against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh and raises questions about the depth of the FBI investigation in 2018.

“Justice,” from filmmaker Doug Liman, debuted Friday night at the Sundance Film Festival to a sold-out theater surrounded by armed guards.

The film, made under intense secrecy, focuses on allegations made by Kavanaugh's Yale classmate Deborah Ramirez that were detailed in a New Yorker article in 2018. Ramirez alleged that at a gathering with friends when she was a freshman in 1983, Kavanaugh pulled down his pants and thrust his penis at her. Kavanaugh has denied those claims. “Justice” also plays a taped recording of a tip given to the FBI from another Yale classmate, Max Stier, that describes a similar incident that the FBI never investigated.

The Stier report was previously detailed in 2019 by New York Times reporters Robin Pogebrin and Kate Kelly as part of their book “The Education of Brett Kavanaugh: An Investigation.” But the details of it came under scrutiny. After the story was posted online but before it was in the print edition, the Times revised the story to add that the book reported that the woman supposedly involved in the incident declined to be interviewed, and that her friends say she doesn’t recall the incident.

Stier was not directly interviewed for the film and declined the filmmakers' request to comment on the contents. An unnamed person whose voice was manipulated for anonymity provided the Stier tape to the filmmakers.

Kavanaugh was sworn in as the 114th justice of the U.S. Supreme Court in October of 2018 after a narrow 50-48 roll call following a wrenching debate over sexual misconduct. He strenuously denied the allegations of Christine Blasey Ford, who says he sexually assaulted her when they were teens.

Many people referenced in the film, from Kavanaugh himself to several of Ramirez's friends who were allegedly there, similarly declined to speak or never responded.

“Justice” is especially critical of the FBI investigation that took place after the hearings. Through FOIA requests the filmmakers found that there were some 4,500 tips sent to the tipline that went uninvestigated.

One of Ramirez’s friends from Yale who was interviewed for the film provided text messages in which a mutual friend admits to being contacted by “Kavanaugh’s people” and participated in the narrative that Ramirez didn’t remember things correctly.

Blasey Ford appears in new footage only in the first several moments of “Justice,” asking Liman, a filmmaker known for “Swingers” and “The Bourne Identity,” why he’s making this film — a question that he doesn’t quite answer.

In a Q&A after the film, Liman said he was simply outraged after watching her testimony in 2018. The making of the film, which they self-financed, was shrouded in secrecy. Everyone signed nondisclosure agreements, Liman said, and they even had code names for those who agreed to participate. He said that people are “terrified” and that those who came forward are “heroes.”

Most of the focus is on telling Ramirez’s story — where she came from, how she ended up at Yale and what kind of person she is and was. Several academics specializing in trauma, as well as lawyers, help explain why memory of traumatic events is reliably fractured and how those gaps can be weaponized by prosecutors.

“Justice’s” surprise inclusion in the festival was announced on Thursday, the first day of the festival, but it quickly became one of the most anticipated films in a slate of over 100. At least part of the reason for something like “Justice” to debut at Sundance is to drum up buzz and secure a distributor. As many of the lawyers in the film say, the stakes are whether or not Kavanaugh perjured himself under oath.

Asked what he wants to happen when audiences see “Justice,” Liman said, “I kind of feel like the job ends with the film and what happens afterwards in beyond my control.”

Standing beside him, his producer Amy Hardy said she disagreed. Hardy said she hopes it triggers outrage and leads to “a real investigation with subpoena powers.”

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Follow AP Film Writer Lindsey Bahr: www.twitter.com/ldbahr.

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For more coverage of the Sundance Film Festival, visit: https://apnews.com/hub/sundance-film-festival

WASHINGTON (AP) — In its first case about the federal law that is credited with helping create the modern internet, the Supreme Court seemed unlikely Tuesday to side with a family wanting to hold Google liable for the death of their daughter in a terrorist attack.

At the same time, the justices also signaled in arguments lasting two and a half hours that they are wary of Google's claims that a 1996 law, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, affords it, Twitter, Facebook and other companies far-reaching immunity from lawsuits over their targeted recommendations of videos, documents and other content.

The case highlighted the tension between technology policy fashioned a generation ago and the reach of today's social media, numbering billions of posts each day.

“We really don’t know about these things. You know, these are not like the nine greatest experts on the internet,” Justice Elena Kagan said of herself and her colleagues, several of whom smiled at the description.

Congress, not the court, should make needed changes to a law passed early in the internet age, Kagan said.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh, one of six conservatives, agreed with his liberal colleague in a case that seemed to cut across ideological lines.

“Isn’t it better,” Kavanaugh asked, to keep things the way they are and “put the burden on Congress to change that?”

The case before the court stems from the death of American college student Nohemi Gonzalez in a terrorist attack in Paris in 2015. Members of her family were in the courtroom to listen to arguments about whether they can sue Google-owned YouTube for helping the Islamic State spread its message and attract new recruits, in violation of the Anti-Terrorism Act. Lower courts sided with Google.

The justices used a variety of examples to probe what YouTube does when it uses computer algorithms to recommend videos to viewers, whether content produced by terrorists or cat lovers. Chief Justice John Roberts suggested what YouTube is doing isn't “pitching something in particular to the person who's made the request” but just a “21st century version” of what has been taking place for a long time, putting together a group of things the person may want to look at.

Justice Clarence Thomas asked whether YouTube uses the same algorithm to recommend rice pilaf recipes and terrorist content. Yes, he was told.

Kagan noted that “every time anybody looks at anything on the internet, there is an algorithm involved,” whether it’s a Google search, YouTube or Twitter. She asked the Gonzalez family’s lawyer, Eric Schnapper, whether agreeing with him would ultimately make Section 230 meaningless.

Lower courts have broadly interpreted Section 230 to protect the industry, which the companies and their allies say has fueled the meteoric growth of the internet by protecting businesses from lawsuits over posts by users and encouraging the removal of harmful content.

But critics argue that the companies have not done nearly enough to police and moderate content and that the law should not block lawsuits over the recommendations that point viewers to more material that interests them and keeps them online longer.

Any narrowing of their immunity could have dramatic consequences that could affect every corner of the internet because websites use algorithms to sort and filter a mountain of data.

Lisa Blatt, representing Google, told the court that recommendations are just a way of organizing all that information. YouTube users watch a billion hours of videos daily and upload 500 hours of videos every minute, Blatt said.

Roberts, though, was among several justices who questioned Blatt about whether YouTube should have the same legal protection for its recommendations as for hosting videos.

“They appear pursuant to the algorithms that your clients have. And those algorithms must be targeted to something. And that targeting, I think, is fairly called a recommendation, and that is Google’s. That’s not the provider of the underlying information,” Roberts said.

Reflecting the complexity of the issue and the court's seeming caution, Justice Neil Gorsuch suggested another factor in recommendations made by YouTube and others, noting that ”most algorithms are designed these days to maximize profits."

Gorsuch suggested the court could send the case back to a lower court without weighing in on the extent of Google's legal protections. He participated in arguments by phone because he was “a little under the weather," Roberts said.

Several other justices indicated that arguments in a related case Wednesday might provide an avenue for avoiding the difficult questions raised Tuesday.

The court will hear about another terrorist attack, at a nightclub in Istanbul in 2017 that killed 39 people and prompted a lawsuit against Twitter, Facebook and Google.

Separate challenges to social media laws enacted by Republicans in Florida and Texas are pending before the high court, but they would not be argued before the fall or decided until the first half of 2024.

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Associated Press writer Jessica Gresko contributed to this report.