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Twitter Is Not Legally Responsible For The Rise of ISIS, Rules California District Court (theverge.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: A lawsuit accusing Twitter of providing material support to ISIS has been dismissed by a California District Court. First filed in January, the lawsuit argued ISIS's persistent presence on Twitter constituted material support for the terror group, and sought to hold Twitter responsible for an ISIS-linked attack on that basis. Filed by the family of an American contractor named Lloyd Fields, the lawsuit sought damages from an ISIS-linked attack in Jordan that claimed Fields' life. The plaintiff's initial complaint alleged widespread fundraising and recruitment through the platform, attributing 30,000 foreign actors recruited through ISIS Twitter accounts in 2015 alone. The judge assigned to the case was ultimately not swayed by that reasoning, finding that the plaintiffs had not offered a convincing argument for holding Twitter liable. The plaintiff will have the chance to submit a modified version of the complaint within 20 days of the order, the second such modification ordered by the judge. The report adds: "Apart from the private nature of Direct Messaging, plaintiffs identify no other way in which their Direct Messaging theory seeks to treat Twitter as anything other than a publisher of information provided by another information content provider," the ruling reads. At the same time, even the private nature of Twitter's Direct Messaging feature "does not remove the transmission of such messages from the scope of publishing activity under section 230(c)(1)."
I skimmed the full opinion, but a 1928 case is instructive. In the 1928 case of Palsgraf v. LIRR a women in a train station was injured when another passenger dropped a box of fireworks that caused some heavy equipment to fall on the women. The women sued the railroad company (as they likely had deeper pockets than the person dropping the fireworks). The court found that the rail road was too far removed from the events that occurred to find them liable. Here too, Twitter is too far removed from the actions of terrorists to find them liable.
This is a pretty interesting example of classic legal concepts being applied to new technology. Anyone who says that the law is outmoded or needs to catch up, only needs to read this opinion.
Fast Federal Court and I.T.C. updates
Cause I thought the general consensus was that Twitter is responsible for the rise of Isis, and terrorism in general.
If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
This guy is a police instructor, and goes to Jordan to train police in a part of the world that's not exactly known for being all rainbows and unicorn turds.
Well after there have already been many "green on blue" attacks where instructees have shot up the (American) instructors in the name of extremist Islam, it happens to him and he gets killed in just such an event.
His family doesn't go after the Jordanian police for not checking background information sufficiently, or taking other measures to watch for this kind of problem.
His family doesn't go after the contracting company that he worked for, for not protecting him sufficiently while there.
His family goes after...Twitter? Wow...let me JUST TAKE A WILD FUCKING GUESS why they went after Twitter...no, wait, I think I got it...
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
Let's be honest, Bush shouldn't have started the invasion in 2003. There were no WMDs, and things like banned missiles were actually being destroyed. Hans Blix actually praised Iraq for disarming themselves and destroying the missiles just before Bush started the invasion. However, over the next several years, things were eventually brought under control by the troop surge and paying Iraqi militia to provide security. Obama stopped those payments and undid what Bush had finally gotten right. And he's shown utter incompetence in his handling of the situation in Syria. We should have learned that arming groups in the Middle East might provide temporary benefits, but has always come back to hurt the US. We regretted arming the Mujahedeen during the conflict in Afghanistan inviting the Soviets. We armed Iraq in the 1980s as they fought Iran, then regretted it when they committed genocide against the Kurds and invaded Kuwait. And yet somehow Obama thought it was a good idea to arm Syrian rebels. Assad is a piece of shit, no doubt, but he's content to be a brutal dictator in his own country and not destabilize his neighbors. Twitter isn't responsible. If they didn't exist, ISIL would distribute their propaganda through other channels. Obama, however, is very much to blame with his incompetent foreign policy.
Oh, I see. I guess it was the two together, then.
But they'll have a hard time denying responsibility for @realDonaldTrump, which is potentially much worse.
Isn't Iraq the co-founder?
It's arguable that ISIS gained its foothold when the US left Iraq. The US left Iraq because Iraq told them to.
Donald Trump loves Hispanics. He does! And he's made major, major sacrifices.
Um no Obama pulled everyone out in a hurry well before iraq's were able to take care of their own country.
Given Twitter's backing by Saudi Arabia, I'm not surprised.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Fucking snoops all over Slashdot my niggas.
FBI.
I use Windows and I see it too.
Um YES the Iraqi government had an agreement with Bush to withdraw the troops and rejected a suspension. If Obama had ignored this request the U.S. would be going against the wishes of a sovereign government.
Either Twitter is:
1. Run by delusional SJWs who refuse to ban people who support and praise the most unapologetically despicable quasi-state the modern world has ever seen (because any concession to Islamophobia would be worse.)
2. They are constantly being approached by three letter agencies who alternately beg and demand that they not ban these accounts so that the users can be traced, warrants can be generated (against anyone who likes or retweets them), closet jihadi sympathizers goaded into saying something stupid, etc. And NSLs prevent them from saying anything about it.
Now, I'm not saying that SJWish Islamophilia is never a problem in the West, but If you think the first possibility is more likely than the second... your tinfoil hat is on inside out.
Gave me a law school gasm
Classic legal feint trying to get the judge to stupidly declare Twitter an uninterested party. This will be used to keep them out of the next stage of the suit and he/they won't be able to rectify unless they can get an appeals court to rescind and resend the case to the original jurisdiction. Twitter won't be able to Thiel the next suit without sanctions.
No, the Iraqi government had an agreement with the US government... previously negotiated by the Bush administration which was done so that the next administration would be able to negotiate a new/extended agreement according to it's own policy decisions... something it failed to do.
Leon Panetta, who was Obama’s defense secretary from July 2011 to February 2013, wrote in his 2014 book, “Worthy Fights,” that as the deadline neared “it was clear to me — and many others — that withdrawing all our forces would endanger the fragile stability” in Iraq. As a result, the Obama administration sought to keep 5,000 to 10,000 U.S. combat troops in Iraq, as Sullivan said in his statement.
But negotiations with Iraq broke down in October 2011 over the issue of whether U.S. troops would be shielded from criminal prosecution by Iraqi authorities. Panetta wrote that Maliki insisted that a new agreement providing immunity to U.S. forces “would have to be submitted to the Iraqi parliament for its approval,” which Panetta said “made reaching agreement very difficult.”
Yes, Bush punted and Obama didn't want to take away all reconstruction aid to force Iraq to capitulate. But cut to the chase.... BUSH negotiated and signed the force agreement that mandated troops be removed, and while his people HOPED it could be renegotiated, that doesn't absolve him from negotiating and signing it.
There's a lot of worthless fucking partisans out there who want to "misremember" that Bush got us into this whole fucking mess a long time before Obama was even thinking about being on the scene. I can't tell sometimes if they're all just natural born fucking liars, or their simply too fucking stupid to use their brains.
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
Twitter Is Not Legally Responsible For The Rise of ISIS... of course not it was Osiris
We'll build a firewall and send the bill to the Muslims
islam, the religion of peace, thats what i blame
https://www.thereligionofpeace...
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
ISIS came from Al Qaeda In Iraq.
Al Qaeda In Iraq came to be because Bush The Lesser invaded Iraq and deposed its leader.
A leader who, while being a horrible person and general pile of evil, also tended to keep a lid on extremism in his country, albeit for self-serving reasons (they threated his own power).
The pull out came because of an agreement signed by Bush the Lesser's Administration, agreeing to pull out by a certain time in 2011.
The Obama administration actually tried to negotiate to stay longer , but was unable to reach an agreement with the Iraqi government.
This is because the Iraqi government wanted the American troops to be subject to Iraqi laws and law enforcement. .
The Obama Administration wisely said no to that condition, and therefore was compelled to adhere to the existing agreement, and pulled out.
The ensuing (actually it began before bush eevn left office) mismanagement of Iraq's defense and military btw is mostly due to the man installed in power by Bush the Lesser's administration, Maliki, started out as a moderate, but quickly became corrupt himself and began using his power (and the military) to silence or coerce his political rivals and enemies. He weakened the morale of the Iraqi troops we trained and armed, he misused them, and then when faced with an actual threat, the merging of elements in Syria with Al Qaeda In Iraq into what has become ISIS, they bailed.
Which has since causes the US to re-enter Iraq, with ever growing number of troops, begin bombing ISIS (for over 2 years now), and quite successfully. ISIS made some large initial gains because of momentum and the bailing of the Iraqi Army. However they have since been pushed back out of over half the territory they originally took.
So the point is this:
calling Obama the found of ISIS in the face of the campaign against ISIS, is like calling Obama a socialist at a time when the capitalist economy of the US has never been better: pure delusional BS. If Obama is a socialist, he is the worst socialist ever. Likewise, if he is the founder of ISIS, he is horrible at it, and was only made possible by the missteps and outright lies of the administration of Bush the Lesser, the man who actually is responsible for the rise of ISIS.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
I think it's a little of both.
Posting anon for obvious reasons though I will check back for replies. I went out of my way to create a chart of the least to most backward Islamic people in each country. The data was sourced from the very resectable PewForum. It turns out Afghanistan is the worst with Pakistan trailing closely behind. Countries where Muslims fare more reasonably include Kazakstan and Russia generally.
Some of the figures are really shocking such as 86% of Muslims in Pakistan favour stoning for adultery, and 88% of Egyptian Muslims believe in the death penalty for leaving Islam.
Here's the graph: https://i.sli.mg/T7Uzwd.png
If Twitter is not held liable for things that its users post (like Jihad recruiting) then force them to apply their terms of service equally instead of censoring viewpoints with which they don't agree. Milo was perma banned for not violating their terms of service (as far as we know because they have never said why) yet Leslie Jones directly violated the TOS and got a warm hug from @Jack
https://twitter.com/lesdoggg/status/755218642674020352
In other related news, AT&T has been cleared in the case against them for supporting kidnapper ransom requests, facilitating drug sales between individuals, prostitution on craigslist, murder, extortion, and 'most other crimes'. However, they were finally taken down for fraudulent money laundering.
Fucking millennials.
I'll tell you who is: George Bush, George W. Bush, and Dick Cheney. Destroying Iraq created the original power-vacuum in the Middle East that set off the domino effect of the Arab Spring. The so-called 'islamic state' assholes are just (attempting to) fill that vacuum.
Vote for Gary Johnson (or anyone who is NOT named 'Clinton' or 'Trump'). He won't win, but at least no one will be able to point a finger at you and say YOU are in part to blame for the fall of the United States.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
ISIS came from Al Qaeda In Iraq.
Wrong. ISIS was founded by President Obama. I heard it on TV this morning from Donald Trump. Therefore it's true.
Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
Ahhhh, Republicans. If you don't like the news, just make it up!
Partisans are never to be believed. These are like sports fans, rooting for their team and booing the other team, even when both teams spend all the time on the field doing the same actions.
Obama was not the founder, (though there are conspiracy nuts who claim Obama and McCain and others deliberately funded them) but there was seriously nothing more Obama could have done or tried, besides handwash everything away and declare ISIS a "JV team"? I think that statement very clearly demonstrates a negligent or cavalier attitude, at the time.
If you want to keep backtracking on causation, one could possibly claim G.W. Bush was forced into Iraq because of Bill Clinton's and UN's mishandling of the sanctions against Saddam, too, which were a mess, as well as frequent failure to maintain the no-fly zone during the cease fire of the "first" war. It was actually our sustained military presence in the region that gave rise to Al Qaeda and their hatred of the US. Bill in turn was forced into it because of Bush Sr., who had no choice but to respond to Saddam's aggression against Kuwait. If only SH had kept his damn army in Iraq, none of this would probably be happening.
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
Yea, lets sue glock and barretta for all police shootings too...
Arming Mujahideen fighters with String missiles (1982), Iran–Contra affair (1985), Operation Desert Shield (1990), Operation Desert Storm - Gulf War (1991)
You can go back even further and examine Arab-Israeli conflict and Egypt-Israel conflicts over Sinai peninsula. Basically the first day when British rule over the region ended, Jews declared a state of Israel, and Arabs (Egypt mostly) send forces into Israel. It's been a mess ever since, and the US did not cause this problem. We keep trying to fix the Middle-East but the US is unable to do that.
You can blame WWI, the British and maybe the Ottoman Empire for falling. You can also blame the generally unwelcome treatment Jews have been given in Europe for centuries for their exodus to Israel and the intolerance of 20th century Arab Muslims for their inability to co-exist with Jews.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
"Arming Mujahideen fighters with String missiles"
For when Silly String just doesn't get the message across.
Seriously though, you summed it up pretty well though I'd emphasize the effect of the Holocaust on the consequent take no prisoners attitude of the Palestine/Israeli Jews and, since the start of the Cold War, partisan US and Western support for Israel in preparing the ground for the rise of militant Islam.
This could mean a gun manufacturer is not liable for someone committing murder with their product, right?
Chewbacon
The Bible is like Wikipedia: written by a bunch of people and verifiable by questionable sources.
sorry, "Stinger" missiles. I'm a programmer and I probably type "String" a few dozen times a day. (also I don't proof-read my posts)
Yes, I think the West has a fair amount of responsibility in setting up the initial conditions. And the US and Russia having a proxy war through Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq probably contributed significantly to the instability of the region. But to me the real sharp downward slide was the end of World War I and the policy of the League of Nations (primarily composed of Western nations). But for all the playing of chessmen that Europe and the United States has done over the decades, much of the blame I lay at the feet of Arabs and Jews who from the get go chose violence over coexistence. (Yeah, easy for me to say. My forefathers were OK with the genocide of Native Americans. Because obviously white people can't coexist with so called "savage races")
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
That last bit seems to be a fundamental part of human nature: when two groups are in competition for a finite resource they will often resort to violence.
Since 1971 America is bullying Saudi Arabia to sell Oil exclusively in US Dollars;
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/...
Result is friction between The Muslim and The West;
http://qz.com/562128/isil-is-a...
Casteism
If only SH had kept his damn army in Iraq
If only! Though maybe the US telling them they didn't particularly care if he squabbled with Kuwait or not influenced his decision..