The owners of Twitter, Google and by extension all the other social networks were relieved yesterday by the US Supreme Court ruling that freed the first two of all responsibility for alleged “instigation or aid” in two attacks by the Islamic State for having hosted band content.
The two intertwined cases refer to the massacres that IS perpetrated in 2015 in different parts of Paris and in 2017 at the Reina nightclub in Istanbul, with separate balances of 130 and 39 deaths. Relatives of victims of both attacks took legal action against the networks for, according to them, having provided implicit assistance to the terrorists by not preventing them from disseminating propaganda, specifically through YouTube videos (owned by Google) and various messages in different tweets.
In the sentence of the complaint against Twitter, raised by the family of Nawras Alassaf, the court acknowledges a certain inaction of the network, but denies that it is punishable: “As the plaintiffs allege, the defendants designed virtual platforms and, knowingly, did not they did enough to remove from their platforms the users affiliated with IS or the content” they produced and posted in the media,” wrote Judge Clarence Thomas in a resolution unanimously supported by the other eight Supreme Court justices. “However” -the rapporteur qualified-, the plaintiffs have not been able to allege that the defendants intentionally provided substantial assistance to the attack on the Reina or that they participated in another way, and knowingly, in the attack.”
So the allegations in the lawsuit fall short of “not alleging any act of encouraging, soliciting, or advising” the commission of the attack. “Rather, the plaintiffs portray the defendants as bystanders passively watching IS’s nefarious plans,” Thomas also noted.
In the case against Google, the relatives of the victim Nohemi Gonzalez, a 23-year-old Californian student killed in one of the Parisian restaurants attacked by IS, appealed to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which since 1996 protects Internet companies facing lawsuits related to content published by users. But the judges avoided going into that glassy matter. “We decline to address the application of Section 230 to a claim that appears to include little or no plausible claim for relief,” the court concluded.
The double ruling represents an important legal victory for those responsible for the networks. “Countless companies, academics, content creators and civil society organizations that joined us in this case will feel comfortable with the result,” said the general counsel from Google, Halimah DeLaine.