'You know ISIS...': US Supreme Court blasts Twitter for aiding terrorist outfit

The US Supreme Court has accused microblogging platform Twitter of 'aiding' and 'abetting' terrorism by allowing radical Islamic outfits like ISIS to use the platform.

Hearing the Twitter v Taamneh case, Justice Amy Coney Barrett on the bench posed a pointed question to Twitter's attorney Seth Waxman.

"You know ISIS is using it, you know ISIS is going to be doing bad things, you know ISIS is going to be committing acts of terrorism," said Barrett, adding that aiding ISIS "is aiding the commission of particular acts in the future."

Meanwhile, Justice Sonia Sotomayor added, "You knew that ISIS was using your platform. But on substantiality, there’s a question of how much it helped ISIS, which is different from how much you helped them."

The case was brought in by the family of Nawras Alassaf, a Jordanian citizen who was killed in a shooting incident in Istanbul, Turkey on January 1, 2017.

Alassaf's family filed a lawsuit claiming Twitter, Google and Facebook were liable for aiding and abetting attack under the federal law called 'Anti-Terrorism Act'.

Twitter, however, insists that it is not enough to know that terrorist outfit is using the platform as even they can use Twitter to engage in non-criminal activities.

The platform further argued that just because its platform is used by tens of millions of users worldwide does not prove that it provided 'assistance' to terrorist groups.

"As a matter of law, a court should conclude …that the failure to do more to remove content in the context of a service that is generally and widely provided to anybody who complies with the policies … does not amount to the knowing provision of substantial assistance," argued Waxman.

The argument between the US Justices and Twitter comes a day after a similar case concerning Google and YouTube was argued in the court. The case also pertained to ISIS and if the two platforms could be held accountable for the videos posted by the terror group.

Legal immunity to tech giants under Section 230 has been questioned in the case. This is the first time that the US Supreme Court is hearing a case related to the scope of the law.

(With inputs from agencies)

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