The US Supreme Court sided on Thursday with social media firms Facebook, Google and Twitter, ruling they are immune from a lawsuit alleging they aided and abetted terrorist groups.

The case centers around the 2017 Daesh/ISIS attack on the Reina nightclub in Istanbul that killed 39 victims. The family of Nawras Alassaf, one of the victims, brought suit against the three social media firms under the 2002 Antiterrorism Act for having “knowingly allowed ISIS and its supporters to use their platforms and ‘recommendation’ algorithms as tools for recruiting, fundraising, and spreading propaganda.”

The family argued that the firms did not do enough to remove content from terrorist groups.

The top court unanimously found, however, that the connection between the defendants and Daesh/ISIS is “far removed.”

“Plaintiffs have failed to allege that defendants intentionally provided any substantial aid to the Reina attack or otherwise consciously participated in the Reina attack—much less that defendants so pervasively and systemically assisted ISIS as to render them liable for every ISIS attack. Plaintiffs accordingly have failed to state a claim,” the court ruled in an opinion authored by Justice Clarence Thomas.

“It might be that bad actors like ISIS are able to use platforms like defendants’ for illegal—and sometimes terrible—ends. But the same could be said of cell phones, email, or the internet generally,” added Thomas.

In a separate case involving a lawsuit against Google related to the 2015 Daesh/ISIS terrorist attacks in Paris that killed 130 people, the top court sidestepped a decision on whether the company and its YouTube subsidiary are protected by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Section 230 largely shields social media companies from lawsuits over content posted by social media users to their websites.

The lawsuit was brought by the family of Nohemi Gonzalez, a US citizen who was killed in the attacks. The family alleged that Google was responsible for Gonzalez’s death, because Google allegedly approved Daesh/ISIS videos for YouTube advertisements and recommended its videos to users.

The Supreme Court returned the case to a lower court for reconsideration, but said in a brief unsigned three-page ruling that the case appears to have “little, if any, plausible claim for relief.”

The Ninth Circuit Court is now ordered to reconsider the case in light of the decision related to the Reina nightclub attack.

Taken together, the rulings mark major victories for the tech industry. (Anadolu Agency)

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