The father of Cal State Long Beach student Nohemi Gonzalez, killed in the Nov. 13 Paris terror attacks, is suing Google, Facebook and Twitter, alleging the social media giants have aided ISIS and other groups by allowing them to use their channels to recruit members and coordinate attacks.
The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Northern California, alleges the three companies “use their social networks as a tool for spreading extremist propaganda, raising funds and attracting new recruits.”
The lawyer representing Nohemi Gonzalez’s father, Reynaldo Gonzalez, said this case is not about free speech but about creating communication conduits that allow ISIS and other terror groups to plan, coordinate and execute terror attacks. The lawsuit also alleges that Google’s AdSense program, part of which allows YouTube users to share in revenue from ads posted alongside heavily trafficked videos, may have resulted in Google making payments to ISIS.
The complaint, however, doesn’t identify any specific payments to ISIS, and YouTube’s terms of service require people seeking to cash in on their videos to follow community guidelines that forbid terrorist-related content, threats or attacks based on factors such as race, religion or sexual orientation.
Michigan-based Keith Altman of Excolo Law, however, said the companies are aiding and in some cases funding terrorist organizations, which contributed to the death of Gonzalez, 23, of El Monte while she was studying abroad during an exchange program.
“There’s no freedom of speech when it comes to terrorism,” Altman said. “We’re not talking about posting viewpoints. We’re talking about recruiting.”
Representatives from Twitter could not be reached for comment. Google, based in Mountain View, and Facebook, based in Menlo Park, released statements saying there is no place for terrorism on their sites and that the companies have explicit polices that prohibit activity from terrorists or their supporters. This type of content, the companies said, is removed when it is flagged by users or by teams employed to investigate such content.
Google said it “has a strong track record of taking swift action against terrorist content.”
Facebook said terrorists or groups that support terrorism have no place on its site.
“If we see evidence of a threat of imminent harm or a terror attack, we reach out to law enforcement,” the company said, adding that “this lawsuit is without merit and we will defend ourselves vigorously.”
A similar lawsuit was filed in January against San Francisco-based Twitter, alleging the popular micro-blog site contributed to the death of Lloyd “Carl” Fields Jr., of Florida in a Nov. 9 attack in Jordan.
Advertisement
In response to that lawsuit, a Twitter spokesman called the lawsuit “meritless,” denying claims that it has not responded to concerns about terrorists using the social network.
Altman said the new case is “going to send a very big statement. ... Hopefully we can bring about some change.”
Gonzalez was the only American who died in the Paris attacks. In all, 129 people were killed in a series of coordinated attacks in Paris and the nearby suburb of Saint-Denis. The terrorist group known as ISIS claimed responsibility for the attacks.
The lawsuit cites an extensive report from the Brookings Institution showing the extent to which ISIS uses Twitter to send its propaganda out to the world and to draw in people who may be vulnerable to radicalization. The report estimated that 46,000 Twitter accounts were used by ISIS supporters through December 2014.
“ISIS has been able to exert an outsized impact on how the world perceives it, by disseminating images of graphic violence ... while using social media to attract new recruits and inspire lone actor attacks,” according to the 2015 Brookings report.
Altman said he expected additional lawsuits to arise following the Orlando, Florida, attack on June 12that resulted in the deaths 50 people, including the shooter, Omar Mateen, who was killed by police. Officials said Mateen called 911 and pledged allegiance to ISIS during the attack but did not appear to have direct contact with the group.
CHANCES OF SUCCESS
Although the social media defendants declined to comment on the specifics of the new lawsuit, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties organization that focuses on technology, said the companies will likely be able to defend themselves with a remaining provision of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, which was primarily intended to prevent minors from accessing online pornography.
Although a 1997 Supreme Court ruling gutted much of the law, language protecting content providers from bearing responsibility for user-generated content remained on the books. The law since then has been used to protect listings sites Craigslist and Backpage after they were sued for liability over prostitution ads and sex trafficking, among others.
“That rule has been upheld in dozens of cases,” said Eric Goldman, a law professor at Santa Clara University School of Law.
In the early days of the internet, the Communications Decency Act could protect a newspaper publisher from liability if an online reader posted a defamatory comment to an article. The law now can give social media firms protection from being held liable from users’ incendiary postings.
“As a general rule, they have this shield in the law,” said Aaron Mackey, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Indeed, Twitter cited the act in its motion to dismiss the lawsuit brought against the firm by Fields’ widow. Attorneys for Tamara Fields, the slain man’s widow, replied that “without Twitter, ISIS’s dramatic emergence over the past few years into one of the most feared terrorist groups in the world would not have been possible” and that the Communications Decency Act does not protect Twitter since ISIS’ ability to communicate via nonpublic direct messages means the firm operates as a technology provider, not a publisher.
But the Gonzalez lawsuit doesn’t directly attack content. It alleges a violation of the federal Anti-Terrorism Act and also claims the defendants provided material support to terrorists that led to Nohemi’s death and that Google in particular profited from terrorism through the sale of ads through its ad-sharing service.
The lawsuit includes a picture of an ISIS YouTube video with an ad created by Google’s ad service, which means the company may have shared revenue with the terrorist group, according to the lawsuit.
“Those two are arguments they have to make to avoid Section 230,” Goldman said regarding violations of the act, “but I would be pretty surprised if they get anywhere, despite their intellectual moves to get around it.”
From the EFF’s perspective, Mackey said holding Twitter or other social media companies legally responsible for extremist content could hinder legitimate uses of the services.
Mackey said the prospect of legal penalties may persuade social media providers to create overbroad filters that prevent people from even using the word ISIS to debate whether the United States should invade countries where the group operates. People living in countries where freedom of speech is restricted could also lose social media as a tool for political organization.