U.S. Supreme Court Blocks Lawsuit Against Twitter Related to Deadly Terrorist Attack in Istanbul

On Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled to uphold laws protecting internet companies and refused to approve the legal pathway for victims of terrorist attacks to sue social media networks. With this ruling, victims of attacks by militant groups cannot sue social media companies under a federal anti-terrorism law for failing to prevent the use of their platforms by terrorist groups. This ruling is a significant victory for Twitter and other social media companies. The justices unanimously overturned a lower court ruling against Twitter, which had revived a lawsuit by relatives of a Jordanian man killed during a New Year's celebration at a nightclub in Istanbul in 2017. This case was one of two that the Supreme Court is currently reviewing with the aim of holding internet companies accountable for user-generated content, raising increasing concerns among the public and U.S. lawmakers. On the same day, the justices also declined to limit a federal law (Section 230) that protects internet companies from lawsuits over user-generated content in a similar case against YouTube, owned by Google and part of Alphabet. This case also included a lawsuit from the family of Nohemi Gonzalez, a 23-year-old California student who was shot dead in the 2015 ISIS attack in Paris, which had been dismissed by a lower court. The Istanbul massacre on January 1, 2017, resulted in the deaths of Al-Saf and 38 others. His relatives accused Twitter of violating a federal law known as the 'Anti-Terrorism Act' by failing to control accounts or messages on its platform, thereby aiding ISIS, which claimed responsibility for the attack. Twitter and its supporters argued that allowing such lawsuits against internet companies threatens their ability to provide services to billions of users, as some may be members of militant groups, even if these platforms regularly enforce policies against terrorism-related content. The case hinged on whether the family's claims that the company knowingly provided 'substantial assistance' to an international terrorist act were sufficient for relatives to maintain their lawsuit and seek damages under the anti-terrorism law. After an initial judge dismissed the lawsuit, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco allowed it to proceed in 2021, concluding that Twitter had failed to take 'meaningful steps' to prevent ISIS from using its platform. Twitter appealed this ruling, and the case was ultimately referred to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Biden administration supported Twitter, stating that the anti-terrorism law imposes liability for aiding a terrorist act, not for 'providing general assistance to a foreign terrorist organization' without any causal connection to the act in question. In the Twitter case, the appellate court did not consider whether Section 230 barred the family's lawsuit. Facebook, Google, and Meta, which are also accused, did not formally join Twitter's appeal. ISIS referred to the Istanbul attack as retaliation for Turkey's military involvement in Syria. The main suspect, Abdulkadir Masharipov, a citizen of Uzbekistan, was later arrested by police. Twitter stated in court documents that it had blocked over 1.7 million accounts for violating rules against 'threatening or promoting terrorism.' This report uses information from Reuters.