Civil Liberties, Tech Groups Defend Twitter Against Charges It Helped ISIS Spread Terrorism
A lawsuit against Twitter for allegedly allowing ISIS to use its network for extremist ideology, leading to deaths of two American contractors, threatens the company's and internet users' free speech rights and is prohibited by Section 230 of the Communications…
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Decency Act (CDA), said two civil liberties groups, a tech think tank and major industry organization in amicus filings to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The Electronic Frontier Foundation and Center for Democracy and Technology, Internet Association (in Pacer) and the Copia Institute (in Pacer) filed briefs in Tamara Fields v. Twitter. The families of two U.S. government contractors killed in a 2015 ISIS attack in Jordan sued Twitter last year in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California for "knowingly" permitting ISIS to use the company's platform "for spreading extremist propaganda, raising funds and attracting new recruits," they said in an amended complaint (in Pacer). "Without Twitter, the explosive growth of ISIS over the last few years into the most feared terrorist group in the world would not have been possible," they said, adding the number of the group's Twitter accounts have grown at an "astonishing rate" since 2010. They accused Twitter of not doing anything to prevent ISIS from using its platform and of giving the group "material support" by allowing members to sign up for accounts. In a November decision (in Pacer), District Judge William Orrick said he dismissed an initial complaint because it was barred by CDA and then the amended complaint because "no amount of careful pleading can change the fact that, in substance, plaintiffs aim to hold Twitter liable as a publisher or speaker of ISIS’s hateful rhetoric, and that such liability is barred by the CDA."