Social Media Giants Sued For Helping ISIS (torontosun.com)

Long-time Slashdot reader nnet quotes the Toronto Sun: Social media giants Twitter, Google and Facebook are being sued by the families of victims of the San Bernardino terror attacks. The lawsuit claims those companies aided ISIS by letting them build their online profile and bolster recruitment. Fourteen people were killed in the December 2015 attacks by twisted husband-wife Islamist extremists Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik. "Without defendants Twitter, Facebook and Google (YouTube), the explosive growth of IS over the last few years into the most feared terrorist group in the world would not have been possible," the suit, filed Wednesday in Los Angeles, alleges.

Comments

Re:Won't go anywhere

[Kjella]

Also, you can't file civil suits based upon "supporting terrorist organizations" or "aiding the enemy." Only the U.S. government and the states can bring criminal charges, and note that they're not doing so...

Since we have an actual lawyer here, how does it work in the US when the core of the civil tort is an alleged criminal act? Like say someone burned my house down, the police think they don't have evidence "beyond a reasonable doubt" for a criminal conviction but I think I might have a "preponderance of evidence" to win in civil court. It certainly sounds like I'd sue for arson...

And the other question, if say a person was shot dead during a bank robbery, how many could the victim's family sue? The robbers themselves, of course. Anyone in a conspiracy. People aiding and abetting, people supplying like suppliers of illegal guns? The bank for defective alarms, cameras and metal detectors? The security guard for neglect or recklessly starting a shootout? Faulty bulletproof glass etc. that wasn't? Because this sounds like a major case of the butterfly effect, even if social media didn't do all they should it sounds quite removed from the actual terrorist killing.

Re:Won't go anywhere

[Kjella]

Thanks, easy read and very informative. One follow-up:

They passed section 230 of the CDA. And until that law is changed, the law says that nobody on the internet (except for the actual poster of information) is civilly liable to anyone else for things posted by others on the internet. End of story.

If it's so all-encompassing why do you need to follow USC 17/512 (c) and the DMCA take down procedures, aren't those about civil liability for ISPs?