Slashdot Mirror
Revived Lawsuit Says Twitter DMs Are Like Handing ISIS a Satellite Phone (theverge.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: A long-standing lawsuit holding Twitter responsible for the rise of ISIS got new life today, as plaintiffs filed a revised version of the complaint (PDF) that was struck down earlier this month. In the new complaint, the plaintiffs argue Twitter's Direct Message service is akin to providing ISIS with physical communications equipment like a radio or a satellite phone. The latest complaint is largely the same as the one filed in January, but a few crucial differences will be at the center of the court's response. The plaintiffs also offer new arguments for why Twitter might be held responsible for the attack. In the dismissal earlier this month (PDF), District Judge William Orrick faulted the plaintiffs for not articulating a case for why providing access to Twitter's services constituted material aid to ISIS. "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, the judge found that the privacy of those direct messages "does not remove the transmission of such messages from the scope of publishing activity." The new complaint includes some language that might address that concern, explicitly comparing Twitter to other material communication tools. "Giving ISIS the capability to send and receive Direct Messages in this manner is no different than handing it a satellite phone, walkie-talkies or the use of a mail drop," the new complaint reads, "all of which terrorists use for private communications in order to further their extremist agendas." The Safe Harbor clause has been used in the past to protect service providers from liability for hosting data on their network. However, "Brookings Institute scholar Benjamin Witters argued against protecting Twitter under the Safe Harbor clause, claiming that the current reasoning would also protect companies that actively offer services in support of terrorists."
Twitter itself buys into (through their vague ToS and uneven/biased enforcement) arguments equating disagreement with harassment, and criticism with threats. And it throws even those stances out the window when the "harassing" party aligns with the right politics. Their Trust and Safety Council contains known harassers and doxxers.
If Twitter consistently took up a principled position to protect free speech (instead of cracking down on political thoughtcrime at the drop of a hat), they'd be in a much better position to resist this.
If ISIS using Twitter is no different to ISIS using a satellite phone, walkie talkies etc, ""all of which terrorists use for private communications in order to further their extremist agendas." then why aren't the creators of those devices involved in this litigation?
So they hold Twitter responsible, but not Skype (Microsoft), Yahoo, AOL, or any of the other companies that offer IM-type or bulletin board type services where information can be passed? Hell - with a little planning, a Wikipedia article edit could be used as a communication channel, not to mention the talk portion where editing an article is discussed. Or even Slashdot - read at -1 and find your messages for the Kettle Run on the next anniversary.
Lawsuits are pending for manufacturers of cell phones, walkie talkies, regular phones, paper, pencils, pens, and tin cans with string between them.
ISIS (and other terrorist groups) killed 19 Americans last year. Total. Cops killed 1,125 Americans last year (it's actually a higher number, since the US gov't doesn't keep track of Americans killed by cops).
Americans with guns killed over 35,000 Americans last year.
But ISIS is used as the excuse to take away people's rights.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I'll let them say that providing online communication is just like selling walkie-talkies. So they plan to sue Walmart for selling walkie-talkies? No, that would be ridiculous? Yep, same as this.
So because Democrats aren't getting the sort of money Republicans are from the NRA... that justifies their rather anti-second amendment views?
In that case... if we look at this link... does that mean that Republicans are perfectly justified in seeking to de-fund Planned parenthood (who unlike the NRA, receives federal dollars) as they didn't get most of the 600k+ which was spent in the current cycle?
Or... some people/groups have beliefs which are not so easily swayed by campaign contributions... so the $$$ spenders notice this and end up giving money both to those who can be swayed, but also in support of those who already share their view.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
Turning on a sat phone in Syria is probably the fastest way to get a predator drone dropping in for a party
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
So willful, active support for terrorism is a lesser crime than violating copyright? Is that what Witters suggests?
No, he's suggesting that a business which makes its product available to terrorists is 'providing material support to terrorists,' and it doesn't matter if that product is, itself, not physically material. He's suggesting that a company providing material support to terrorists should not be able to use copyright law to hide from the NSA.
The fundamental claim that we should all be worried about is that doing business with a terrorist, even if you don't know they're terrorists, is equivalent to actively promoting their cause. You know, so if you're an electric company, and one of your customers sets off a bomb, you may be liable for prosecution.
We need to stop being hypocrites about our values.
Private communication risks our security (As the bad guys cannot be monitored).
Security risks our privacy (As the good guys will be monitored).
I would also like to make a point it doesn't take a team of super geniuses to code an encrypted and unrecorded communication protocol. Just one guy, and less than one day of work. It may not be clean and polished, but it would do the job.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
"If they want support from Democrats, they need to pay for it like everyone else. Don't go pretending it has anything to do with ethics or beliefs."
Sure. Where do I send my check? The DNC isn't interested, they claim to oppose gun ownership for a variety of reasons, and pay-to-play isn't at the top of the list, by their own reckoning.
And despite all this discussion, they intend to subvert the Second Amendment, and are talking like they would also subvert the First Amendment. Which make sense if you're a dedicated statist and socialist (not entirely redundant).
You may be guessing I'm opposed to such dimishment of these constitutional rights. Yup. When these are gone, all the others are easily denied. More to the point, however, claims that Twitter is enabling terrorists with tools and functions that permit communication could be lodged against any pre-paid cell phone carrier, payphone carrier, newspaper (classifieds), the list goes on. This is unfortunate, but unavoidable unless you grant the State the permission to intercept all your communications.
I'm not yet ready to do that. The State has shown itself untrustworthy, and my private communications will only be saved for future use if gathered ever. They will not surrender them, never delete them, and share as they wish, with any state or agency. At best. More likely they will lose them to the inevitable hax0r who finally digs in and gets it. Or the whistleblower whose outrage gets the better of them and carries it out the door.
Twitter is not the problem.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Worse. It rests on the idea that Twitter knows who the terrorists are.
Providing something to someone in good faith isn't a crime even if they later turn out to be a terrorist, as a rule. I mean sure, if you provide a firearm, you'd probably better have done due diligence, and if you send money to a charity in the Middle East, it is probably a good idea to do so, though not legally required. However, AT&T isn't committing a crime if they give cell service to somebody merely because they later find out that the person used that phone to commit an act of terror. The same applies here.
And this isn't even an ongoing service except for the existence of a particular account and the ability to look up the IP address for that account. So this is more like selling someone a set of walkie talkies. Once you've sold them, you can't readily take them back just because you later find out that they are terrorists. And the law can't reasonably expect you to do so. More to the point, it does not expect you to do so.
The best that the government can do is insist that Twitter shut down access to an account that they suspect is terror-related. And if they do that, Twitter will undoubtedly deactivate it. But the government apparently doesn't want to do that, as evidenced by the fact that they have not done so. We could speculate about whether the government's decision is based on futility (because a new account would just spring up five minutes later) or some actual security-related reason, but from the perspective of a prosecution of Twitter for giving material support, the government's reasons for not demanding account closure are irrelevant. The mere fact that the government did not tell them that a particular account is that of a suspected terrorist is a sufficiently airtight defense against those charges.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.