{"id":5506,"date":"2018-02-14T12:30:30","date_gmt":"2018-02-14T16:30:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ncjolt.org\/?p=5506"},"modified":"2020-06-04T20:52:33","modified_gmt":"2020-06-04T20:52:33","slug":"twitter-not-liable-isis-use-site","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/blogs\/twitter-not-liable-isis-use-site\/","title":{"rendered":"Twitter Not Liable for ISIS Use of Site"},"content":{"rendered":"

On January 31st<\/sup>, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that Twitter can\u2019t be held liable<\/a> for allegedly allowing the Islamic State (ISIS) to use its social network to spread propaganda. The case, Fields v. Twitter, Inc., <\/em>is brought by a pair of plaintiffs whose family members were killed in 2015 in an ISIS terrorist attack in Jordan. Significantly, this is the first appellate ruling to address if and when social media services, like Twitter and Facebook, can be liable for terrorist acts committed by terrorist organizations who have accounts on their websites.
\nThe plaintiffs sued Twitter pursuant to the civil remedies provision of the Anti-Terrorism Act. The plaintiffs accused Twitter of violating the provision by knowingly providing material to support to the terrorist organization. More specifically, they alleged that Twitter, knowingly and recklessly, provided material support in the form of Twitter accounts and direct-messaging services, and thereby proximately caused the deaths of their family members. In support of their claims, plaintiffs showed that at least 79 Twitter accounts were official ISIS accounts. Moreover, that ISIS used Twitter\u2019s Direct Messaging feature to communicate with potential recruits and for fundraising purposes. Finally, they alleged that Twitter allowed ISIS to attract more than 30,000 foreign recruits.
\nA federal district court<\/a> in California dismissed the case pursuant to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which protects online publishers from liability for their users\u2019 content. However, the Ninth Circuit sidestepped the applicability of Section 230 and dismissed the plaintiffs case on causation grounds. The court held that the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) requires proximate causation, not just but-for-causation. In justifying their reasoning, the court was skeptical of the burden that cases like this would place on court\u2019s attempting to determine damages. \u201cCommunication services and equipment are highly interconnected with modern economic and social life, such that the provision of these services and equipment to terrorists could be expected to cause ripples of harm to flow far beyond the defendant’s misconduct. Nothing . . . . indicates that Congress intended to provide a remedy to every person reached by these ripples<\/a>.\u201d While the court did potentially acknowledge that the platform that Twitter provides these terrorist organizations could advance the group\u2019s cause to some degree, the court could not find any connection between Twitter\u2019s providing of this platform and the injuries suffered by the victims.
\nMoving forward, the plaintiffs could seek a rehearing en banc, or, appeal to the Supreme Court. Certainly, this will not be the last case of its kind, as social media continues to expand its influence around the globe. Nevertheless, it\u2019s difficult to envision any court ruling differently than the Ninth Circuit did without a more direct connection between the platform and the injuries sustained in future attacks. Despite their success in court thus far, social media providers are stepping up their efforts to combat terrorism<\/a>. Something to keep an eye out for is whether Congress will decide to intervene. Because this ruling did not turn on the applicability of Section 230, it is possible that Congress could draft a different statue, that could lead to different legal outcomes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On January 31st, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that Twitter can\u2019t be held liable for allegedly allowing the Islamic State (ISIS) to use its social network to spread propaganda. The case, Fields v. Twitter, Inc., is brought by a pair of plaintiffs whose family members were killed in 2015 in …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5507,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[51],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5506"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5506"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5506\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6975,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5506\/revisions\/6975"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}