The right ruling I think--without intent, there is no culpability:
The Supreme Court ruled for Google and Twitter in a pair of closely watched liability cases Thursday, saying families of terrorism victims had not shown the companies “aided and abetted” attacks on their loved ones.
“Plaintiffs’ allegations are insufficient to establish that these defendants aided and abetted ISIS in carrying out the relevant attack,” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in a unanimous decision in the Twitter case. The court adopted similar reasoning in the claim against Google.
The court’s narrowly focused rulings sidestepped requests to limit a law that protects social media platforms from lawsuits over content posted by their users, even if the platform’s algorithms promote videos that laud terrorist groups.
The relatives in both cases based their lawsuits on the Anti-Terrorism Act, which imposes civil liability for assisting a terrorist attack. At issue was whether the company provided substantial assistance to the terrorist group.
But Thomas, writing in the Twitter case, said the link was too attenuated.
“As alleged by plaintiffs, defendants designed virtual platforms and knowingly failed to do ‘enough’ to remove ISIS-affiliated users and ISIS related content — out of hundreds of millions of users worldwide and an immense ocean of content — from their platforms,” he wrote. “Yet, plaintiffs have failed to allege that defendants intentionally provided any substantial aid to the Reina attack or otherwise consciously participated in the Reina attack — much less that defendants so pervasively and systemically assisted ISIS as to render them liable for every ISIS attack.”
The Supreme Court ruled for Google and Twitter in a pair of closely watched liability cases Thursday, saying families of terrorism victims had not shown the companies “aided and abetted” attacks on their loved ones.
“Plaintiffs’ allegations are insufficient to establish that these defendants aided and abetted ISIS in carrying out the relevant attack,” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in a unanimous decision in the Twitter case. The court adopted similar reasoning in the claim against Google.
The court’s narrowly focused rulings sidestepped requests to limit a law that protects social media platforms from lawsuits over content posted by their users, even if the platform’s algorithms promote videos that laud terrorist groups.
The relatives in both cases based their lawsuits on the Anti-Terrorism Act, which imposes civil liability for assisting a terrorist attack. At issue was whether the company provided substantial assistance to the terrorist group.
But Thomas, writing in the Twitter case, said the link was too attenuated.
“As alleged by plaintiffs, defendants designed virtual platforms and knowingly failed to do ‘enough’ to remove ISIS-affiliated users and ISIS related content — out of hundreds of millions of users worldwide and an immense ocean of content — from their platforms,” he wrote. “Yet, plaintiffs have failed to allege that defendants intentionally provided any substantial aid to the Reina attack or otherwise consciously participated in the Reina attack — much less that defendants so pervasively and systemically assisted ISIS as to render them liable for every ISIS attack.”
