Trial News

In a pair of cases alleging that social media giants should be held accountable for their role in aiding and abetting terrorist attacks, the U.S. Supreme Court found that the plaintiffs failed to state a claim for relief under the Antiterrorism Act (Twitter, Inc. v. Taamneh, No 21-1496 (U.S. May 18, 2023); Gonzalez v. Google LLC, No 21-1333 (U.S. May 18, 2023).) The Court declined to rule on whether §230 of the Communications Decency Act bars the plaintiffs’ claims, finding it need not reach the issue.

Justice Clarence Thomas authored the unanimous decision in Twitter, which rejected the plaintiffs’ arguments that the “defendants’ ‘recommendation’ algorithms go beyond passive aid and constitute active, substantial assistance.” The decision characterized the algorithms as “agnostic as to the nature of the content,” adding that “both tort and criminal law have long been leery of imposing aiding-and-abetting liability for mere passive nonfeasance.” In addition, the Court found that the plaintiffs had not identified a “duty that would require defendants or other communication-providing services to terminate customers after discovering that the customers were using the service for illicit ends.”

The Court also rejected the plaintiffs’ argument that Google’s YouTube should be held accountable because it shared advertising revenue with ISIS through its revenue-sharing system. The Court pointed out that the plaintiffs’ complaint did not detail how much money Google shared with ISIS and so, in the Court’s view, did not plausibly allege that its advertising revenue provided “substantial assistance” to the terrorist attack that harmed the plaintiffs.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s concurring opinion noted that the decisions “are narrow in important respects” and that “the common-law propositions” the Court invokes “do not necessarily translate to other contexts.”

In a three-page per curiam opinion in Gonzalez, the Court vacated the Ninth Circuit’s decision, which held that all but the plaintiffs’ revenue-sharing claims were barred under §230. “Independent of §230,” the Court said, the plaintiffs’ complaint “states little if any claim for relief.” It remanded for the Ninth Circuit to reconsider in light of its decision in Twitter.

AAJ filed an amicus brief in Gonzalez in support of the plaintiffs objecting to courts’ interpretation of §230 “that strays far beyond the narrow protections for internet companies that Congress had in mind.”