Nine members of the US Supreme Court unanimously agreed that the content of Article 230 of the Communications Ethics Act related to the cases in question protects internet companies from liability in similar situations.
Judge Clarence Thomas stated that the lawsuit filed on Twitter by relatives of Nawras Alassaf, who died in the 2017 New Year’s Eve terror attack at the entertainment center in Ortaköy, “far from plausibly claiming that the social media company aided and abetted the attack.”
In the Supreme Court’s decision, it was noted that in an environment where internet companies serve users by providing content, third parties cannot be held responsible for their actions.
After a Daesh-linked attacker killed Nawras Alassaf and 38 others at an Istanbul nightclub in 2017, Alassaf’s family sued Twitter and other technology platforms, accusing them of “not imposing adequate sanctions against the terrorist group.”
Google lawsuit also dismissed
The U.S. Supreme Court has also ruled that the Communications Ethics Act has been prosecuted for the lawsuit filed against Google by the family of Nohemi Gonzales, a U.S. citizen who died in the 2015 DAESH attack in Paris, the capital of France, for “recommending videos of the terrorist organization on YouTube”. Evaluating under section 230, it found the plaintiffs unjustified.
Chris Marchese, Director of the Litigation Center at NetChoice, a technology trade group that represents Twitter and Google, underlined in a written statement that this decision is “a big win for freedom of expression on the internet”.
“With billions of content added to the Internet every day, content control is a flawed but vital tool to keep users safe and the Internet working. Supreme Court rulings adhere to Article 230 and protect freedom of expression online,” Marchese said. made its assessment.
Google lawyers had argued in previous hearings that article 230 of the Communications Ethics Act, enacted in 1996, protects the company from all claims to prevent internet companies from being held liable for content posted by third parties.