A federal judge on Wednesday dismissed a lawsuit that sought to hold Twitter accountable for the death of Americans murdered by the Islamic State, finding that the presence of terrorist propaganda on the platform was not enough to constitute "material support" for the group's actions by the social networking giant.
"As horrific as these deaths were ... Twitter cannot be treated as a publisher or speaker of ISIS's hateful rhetoric and is not liable under the facts alleged," wrote Judge William Orrick of the Northern District of California.
Plaintiffs in the case argued Twitter had failed to do enough to keep members of the Islamic State from spreading propaganda on the platform and that it led, in part, to the Nov. 2015 shooting deaths of two Americans who were working as contractors in Jordan.
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However, Orrick said plaintiffs failed to explain "how Twitter's mere provision of Twitter accounts to ISIS … proximately caused the November 2015 shooting," and added that the site looked to be nothing more "than a publisher of information" produced by third parties.
The decision comes seven months after the suit was filed, and contributes to the emerging precedent that tech providers cannot be held accountable for content that users distribute on their platforms. Government officials and critics outside of government have both criticized certain tech providers, especially Twitter, for failing to do enough to diminish the amount of terrorist-related propaganda being distributed online.
Plaintiffs in the case have 20 days to amend and refile the suit responsive to Orrick's critique. A decision has yet to be reached on a similar suit filed against Twitter, Facebook and Google in the same court by the family of a victim of the November terrorist attack in Paris.