Washington (AFP) – The Supreme Court appeared skeptical on Wednesday in a lawsuit trying to hold social media companies responsible for a terrorist attack in a Turkish nightclub that killed 39 people.
During arguments in the Supreme Court, several judges maintained that there was no evidence directly linking Twitter, Facebook and Google to the 2017 attack on the Reina nightclub in Istanbul. The family of a man killed in the attack says the companies aided and abetted the attack because they helped the growth of the Islamic State group, which claimed responsibility for the attack. A lower court allowed the lawsuit to proceed.
The Court’s judgment in the Wednesday case and another related case it heard the day before Important, especially because companies were protected from liability on the Internet, which allowed them to grow into the giants they are today.
If a court prevents the lawsuit related to the attack in Turkey from moving forward, it may avoid a major ruling on the companies’ legal immunity. This outcome would leave the current system in place, but also leave the possibility for judges to take up the case again in a later case.
Judge Amy Coney Barrett was among the members of the court who noted that the lawsuit against the companies lacked the kind of determination required under federal anti-terrorism law. There should be specific allegations in the complaint, Barrett said, “not just general recruitment or radicalization of people.”
Judge Neil Gorsuch, who participated remotely for the second day in a row due to illness, told the family’s attorney that he is “struggling with how your complaint is consistent with the three requirements of the statute” that the companies knowingly assisted someone in the commission of the terrorist act they represent.
The law involved in the case is the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, which allows Americans injured in a terrorist attack abroad to seek monetary damages in federal court. US citizens who are family members of Nawras Al-Assaf, who was killed in the Reina nightclub attack, have sued Twitter, Facebook and YouTube Inc. Google under the law.
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