May 19, 2023
The United States Supreme Court has declined to hear a lawsuit that may have called into question Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. This federal legislation protects internet corporations like Twitter and YouTube against lawsuits based on user-generated content, especially those originating from the Anti-Terrorism Act.
Families of those murdered by Islamist shooters in foreign assaults had launched lawsuits against internet companies, claiming them liable for the presence of terrorist groups on their platforms or for advocating their content. But the justices overruled a lower court ruling that had renewed a case against Twitter by the American family of Nawras Alassaf, a Jordanian man slain in an Islamic State-claimed attack in 2017.
The Supreme Court also handled a YouTube issue, returning a complaint filed by the family of Nohemi Gonzalez, a college student murdered in an Islamic State assault in Paris in 2015. It did this given that the family’s claims were expected to fail based on the decision of the Twitter case.
The Supreme Court’s decision indicated that the family’s arguments lacked credibility, and it declined to review the family’s complaint’s application of Section 230.
The sources for this piece include an article in Reuters.
