Twitter Sued For Giving Voice To Islamic State (reuters.com)

An anonymous reader writes: An American woman named Tamara Fields has sued Twitter in U.S. federal court, saying the social network gave the Islamic State a voice to spread its propaganda. Fields's husband died on November 9, when the terrorist organization attacked a police training center in Amman, Jordan. The complaint alleges, "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." At the end of 2015, Twitter stepped up its efforts (or at least its official policies) to block such content from its site. But the company has been under fire for over a year from citizens and law enforcement officials over the activity of various terrorist groups on its platform. Fields's attorneys hope that her husband's death will give her proper standing to challenge Twitter in court.

Comments

The enemy of my enemy

[Anonymous Coward]

Suing an online commentary platform for allowing comments is ridiculous. However, anything that damages social media is welcome as far as I'm concerned.

It will be a glorious day when Twitter and the rest of its ilk disappear into history just like myspace.

Re:The enemy of my enemy

[GrumpySteen]

One of these is true:

1) Twitter employees read every one of the 500 million tweets per day that get posted and agree with the content of them all.

2) You're making accusations despite having both a complete lack of evidence and a complete lack of understanding of the subject.

Re:The enemy of my enemy

[_KiTA_]

One of these is true:

1) Twitter employees read every one of the 500 million tweets per day that get posted and agree with the content of them all.

2) You're making accusations despite having both a complete lack of evidence and a complete lack of understanding of the subject.

BZZT. That's a 10 yard penalty for a False Dilemma fallacy. Try again.

3) People have reported the offending content and Twitter left it up in the name of free speech -- while punishing people who disagree with fake feminist con artists like Zoe Quin or Brianna Wu, because "freeze peach" is so 1990s.

What's next?

[Anonymous Coward]

We should sue the courts for giving this lunatic a voice.

Re:What's next?

[ArmoredDragon]

1. "most-feared" is more about the news agencies reporting. Statistically you are in more danger from your own family/friends.

Umm...That really, heavily, depends on where you live. In this case it was Jordan. Big difference than in the US.

2. Al-Qaeda used to be "the most-feared" and they managed it without Twitter.

Al Qaeda never managed to establish a caliphate.

3. Finally, what evidence does she have that those specific terrorists actually used Twitter to recruit/plan/whatever? As opposed to, say, text messages.

Considering that it's well known to be their primary recruitment platform (even by their own admission,) I'm sure you can find plenty.

Hmmmm....

[Brostenen]

So... Let me get this straight! If her husband was killed in an auto accident instead Would she then sue those who build the road? Or would she sue those who build the car that drove into her husband? Why, when she actually sue's twitter. Why would she not sue those who created the internet? Twitter can't be held reliable for this. They are after all doing something as of now.

Re:Fueled by recent change to Twitters TOS

[BrookHarty]

Thing about bans, they still need to be evenly enforced, and twitter seems to selectively enforcing their rules. Facebook is currently in a lawsuit over this for allowing "kill Israelis" pages and only banning "kill Arabs" pages. Companies are not evenly enforcing their policies and actually being very offensive towards some groups.

Re:Fueled by recent change to Twitters TOS

[msobkow]

No, this is in the US. It is fueled by one thing and one thing only: GREED.

The logic of "Fuck You"

[Required Snark]

She in understandably upset, but what she really wants to do is lash out at somebody. There has to be someone to blame, and there is no way for her to get at the real perps, so she (and her lawyers) go after a big name that everyone knows.

The magical landscape of the internet is a perfect place to project all that rage. The public has no clue about how it works or how it is controlled, so any claim about responsibility can seem credible. If she had sued Toyota because they seem to be the official truck of ISIS, everyone would know she was off base and acting irrationally. But you go after the likes of Twitter and it makes good headlines.

In some ways Twitter has set themselves up for this. Twitter, Facebook, and other such services want all the power and money that goes with being a de facto public utility like a phone company. Then want to avoid the rules that apply to common carriers because it would limit their behavior. If they had common carrier status it would protect them from this kind of law suit. They want it both ways: the reach of a public utility without any of the responsibility. The only good part of this whole mess is that they will have to deal with a publicity nightmare because of their greed and arrogance.

Re:Fueled by recent change to Twitters TOS

[PopeRatzo]

Sure, there is no greed outside US, everybody knows that.

There's greed everywhere. We just do it better than everybody else.

Re: Fueled by recent change to Twitters TOS

[Mashiki]

I saw what you did there.

While your average SJW isn't running around trying to kill someone, they are threatening, doxing, harassing and trying to get people fired from their job because they don't like what you say. Fun thing though, ISIS and SJW's in general use the same blockbot... You of course can't forget either the number of SJW's who either openly support, or opine support for ISIS either.

Re:Can the rest of the world sue this woman

[PPH]

Sue Greece. They started all this democracy crap in the first place.