Supreme Court hears social media terrorism lawsuits

WASHINGTON – Supreme Court said it would hear two cases on Monday to hold social media companies financially responsible for terrorist attacks. The cases are seen as an important check on a federal law that generally exempts Internet companies from liability for material that users post on their networks.

In the cases the court agreed to hear, relatives of people killed in terrorist attacks in France and Turkey sued Google, Twitter and Facebook. They accused the companies of helping terrorists spread their message and radicalizing recruits. One of the cases was dismissed, largely under Section 230 of the Media Decency Act, while the other was allowed to proceed.

the court who began his new term on Mondayis expected to hear arguments in the cases this winter with rulings before the court recesses for the summer, usually in late June.

One of the cases the judges will hear involves Nohemi Gonzalez, a 23-year-old US citizen studying in Paris. A Cal State Long Beach student was one of 130 people killed in attacks by the Islamic State group in November 2015. Attackers attacked cafes, the French national stadium and the Bataclan theater. Gonzalez died in the attack at La Belle Equipe bistro.

Relatives of Gonzalez sued Google, which owns YouTube, saying the platform aided the Islamic State group by allowing it to post hundreds of videos that helped incite violence and recruit potential supporters. Relatives of Gonzalez said the company’s computer algorithms recommended the videos to viewers most likely to be interested in them. But a judge dismissed the case, and a federal appeals court upheld the ruling.

Another case the court agreed to hear concerns Jordanian citizen Nawras Alassaf. He died in the 2017 Reina nightclub attack in Istanbul, where a gunman linked to the Islamic State killed 39 people.

Alasaf’s relatives sued Twitter, Google and Facebook for aiding and abetting terrorism, alleging that the platforms fueled the rise of the Islamic State and did not go far enough in trying to curb terrorist activity on their platforms. The lower court granted the case.

The cases of Reynaldo Gonzalez et al. v Google, 21-1333, and Twitter et al. v Mehier Taamneh, 21-1496.