Washington (BLAZETRENDS) that group.
The decision was drafted by Conservative Justice Clarence Thomas with the unanimous support of all the justices on the court.
The Supreme Court and its analysis of the case
In the ruling, Thomas argues that holding Twitter responsible for the 2017 terrorist attack that claimed the life of Jordanian Nauras al Asaf in Turkey, as requested by his family, would force any communications provider to be held liable for any wrongdoing simply because they are aware that criminals use their systems.
“Actors such as IS may use these platforms (…) for illegal, and sometimes terrible purposes,” says the magistrate, “but the same could be said of mobile phones, email, or the Internet in general.”
The judge further explains that the accusation by Al Asaf’s relatives that Twitter failed to act to stop the spread of pro-IS messages does not prove that the social network consciously tried to help the attack in which he lost his identity take place. life the jordanian
It also highlights that this accusation would make the platform responsible for any attack committed by IS anywhere in the world.
In a concurring opinion, progressive Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson considered that the rejection of the arguments of the Al Asaf family (and those of the family of Noehmi Gonzalez, who sued Google for a similar case that was also rejected today by the Supreme) does not imply that the court will always rule in the same sense if new lawsuits are presented.
Thus, Jackson explains that the principles used by the court to reject both lawsuits “are not universal”, which is why he opens the door to evaluate “other contexts” in which the responsibility of social media companies is assessed for the content that publish their users.
Both Google and Twitter had maintained, in both cases, that the use of their platforms by IS terrorists does not imply that the technology companies provided them with conscious assistance. This view was also shared by the US government.