A US court has dismissed a lawsuit against Twitter that claimed the social networking sir was providing ‘material support’ dreaded terror group Islamic State.
The family of two men shot and killed in Jordan claimed that Twitter had contributed to their deaths by allowing the group to sign up for and use Twitter accounts.
A federal judge in San Francisco agreed with Twitter that the company cannot be held liable because it wasn’t the speaker of ISIS’s hateful rhetoric. Federal law protects service providers that merely offer platforms for speech, without creating the speech itself.
“As horrific as these deaths were ... Twitter cannot be treated as a publisher or speaker of Isis’s hateful rhetoric and is not liable under the facts alleged,” US district Judge William H Orrick wrote Wednesday.
The family has the option to amend and refile the case.
A similar lawsuit against Google, Facebook and Twitter is also moving through the courts. That suit, filed in June, was filed by the father of a young woman killed in the Paris massacre last November.
Representatives for Twitter and a lawyer representing the families of two men could not immediately be reached for comment.
With AP Inputs
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