On May 18, the U.S. Supreme Court delivered two victories to internet and social media companies, preserving their legal protections and refusing to open the door for victims of militant group attacks to sue these businesses under an anti-terrorism law.
In a case involving YouTube, a video-sharing platform owned by Google LLC, and Twitter Inc in a separate case, the justices avoided making a definitive ruling on weakening Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. This federal law shields internet companies from lawsuits regarding user-posted content.
Similarly, they shielded Twitter Inc from litigation seeking to apply the Anti-Terrorism Act, a federal law that allows Americans to seek damages related to "an act of international terrorism."
In both instances, families of individuals killed by Islamist gunmen abroad had filed lawsuits in an attempt to hold internet companies accountable for the presence of militant groups on their platforms or for promoting their content.
In a unanimous decision, the justices overturned a lower court's ruling that had revived a lawsuit against Twitter brought by the American relatives of Nawras Alassaf, a Jordanian man who was killed in a 2017 attack during New Year's celebrations at an Istanbul nightclub, claimed by the Islamic State militant group.
Regarding the YouTube case, the justices referred a lawsuit brought by the family of Nohemi Gonzalez, a California college student who was fatally shot in a 2015 Islamic State attack in Paris, back to a lower court. They chose not to address the extent of Section 230, as it was unnecessary due to the outcome of the Twitter case, given that the family's claims seemed likely to fail.
Section 230 safeguards "interactive computer services" by ensuring they cannot be legally treated as the "publisher or speaker" of information provided by users.
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