In a significant legal development, the US Supreme Court has ruled in favour of Google, Twitter, and Facebook in lawsuits aimed at holding them accountable for terrorist attacks facilitated through their platforms. However, the court has chosen to sidestep the larger issue surrounding these cases: the federal law that shields social media companies from being sued for content posted by users.
The justices unanimously dismissed a lawsuit alleging that the companies allowed their platforms to be exploited in an attack at a Turkish nightclub in 2017, which claimed the lives of 39 individuals. In another case involving an American college student who died in a terrorist attack by the Islamic State in Paris in 2015, the court unanimously returned the case to a lower court, suggesting that very little remained of the case.
Initially, the Supreme Court took up the Google case to examine whether the legal protection afforded to social media companies under Section 230 of the 1996 law was overly broad. However, the court decided it was unnecessary to address this matter due to the limited connection between Google and the Paris attack.
The court stated in an unsigned opinion, "We therefore decline to address the application of Section 230 to a complaint that appears to state little, if any, plausible claim for relief."
This outcome, at least for now, represents a victory for the tech industry, which had warned of potential chaos on the internet if Google had lost the case. Nevertheless, the Supreme Court retains the option to revisit this issue in a future case.
Anna Diakun, a staff attorney at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, highlighted the significance of unanswered questions related to the extent of platforms' immunity under Section 230. She stated, "The Court will eventually have to answer some important questions that it avoided in today's opinions. Questions about the scope of platforms' immunity under Section 230 are consequential and will certainly come up soon in other cases."
Halimah DeLaine Prado, Google's general counsel, affirmed the company's commitment to safeguarding free expression online, combating harmful content, and supporting businesses and creators who benefit from the internet.
While the outcome disappointed the lawyer representing the family of Nohemi Gonzalez, who was killed in the Paris attack, they vowed to continue the fight. In an email, Nitsana Darshan-Leitner wrote, "We lawyers see this decision as just another hurdle we need to navigate. It took decades to topple Big Tobacco; we'll eventually rein in reckless and greed-driven Big Tech as well."
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The families of victims in both attacks argued that the internet giants failed to take sufficient measures to prevent their platforms from being exploited by extremist groups for radicalization and recruitment. They filed lawsuits under a federal law that allows Americans injured in terrorist attacks abroad to seek monetary damages in federal court.
The family of a victim in the Reina nightclub bombing in Istanbul claimed that the companies aided the growth of the Islamic State group, which claimed responsibility for the attack. However, Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for the court, stated that the family's claims did not plausibly allege that the defendants aided and abetted the Reina attack.
In the case of the Paris attack, Gonzalez's family made similar claims against Google for her killing at a Paris bistro, which was also claimed by the Islamic State. They sought to sue Google for YouTube videos they believed contributed to the attraction and radicalization of IS recruits, as Google owns YouTube.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals had previously ruled that most of the claims were barred by the immunity law pertaining to the internet.
The Supreme Court's decision to review that ruling in October sparked concerns among Google and other technology companies. Google's top lawyer, Kent Walker said, “If we undo Section 230, that would break a lot of the internet tools.”
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