Twitter, Inc. v. Taamneh

Supreme Court of the United States
598 U. S. ____ (2023)

ELI5:

Rule of Law:

To establish aiding-and-abetting liability under 18 U.S.C. § 2333(d)(2), a plaintiff must show the defendant consciously and culpably participated in the specific act of international terrorism that caused the injury. Merely providing a generally available communication platform that terrorists use for general purposes is insufficient to show the requisite knowing and substantial assistance.

Facts:

The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization, used social media platforms operated by Twitter, Facebook, and Google for recruitment, fundraising, and propaganda.
These companies were aware that ISIS used their platforms but allegedly failed to adequately remove ISIS-related content and accounts.
The platforms provide generally available services to billions of users and use content-agnostic algorithms to recommend content based on user data.
In 2017, Abdulkadir Masharipov, an ISIS operative, carried out a terrorist attack on the Reina nightclub in Istanbul, Turkey.
Nawras Alassaf was killed in the attack.
The plaintiffs did not allege that the social media platforms were used to plan, coordinate, or carry out the Reina nightclub attack itself.

Procedural Posture:

The family of Nawras Alassaf sued Twitter, Inc., Facebook, Inc., and Google, Inc. in a U.S. District Court, alleging secondary liability under 18 U.S.C. § 2333(d)(2).
The District Court granted the defendants' motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim.
The plaintiffs, as appellants, appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
The Ninth Circuit, as the intermediate appellate court, reversed the District Court's dismissal, finding the plaintiffs had plausibly stated a claim.
Twitter, Inc., as petitioner, successfully petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court for a writ of certiorari.

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Issue:

Does a social media company "aid and abet" an act of international terrorism under 18 U.S.C. § 2333(d)(2) by knowingly allowing a designated terrorist organization to use its generally available platform for recruitment and propaganda, where there are no allegations the platform was used to plan or execute the specific attack that injured the plaintiffs?

Opinions:

Majority - Justice Thomas

No. Plaintiffs’ allegations that these social-media companies aided and abetted ISIS fail to state a claim under 18 U.S.C. § 2333(d)(2). The core of aiding-and-abetting liability requires conscious, voluntary, and culpable participation in a specific wrongful act. Merely creating and operating communications platforms that are available to all, and that bad actors like ISIS happen to use, is not culpable conduct. The relationship between the defendants and the Reina attack is too attenuated, as the platforms' alleged assistance was passive, arm's-length, and not directed at the specific attack. To hold otherwise would expand liability for all communication providers beyond traditional tort principles and unmoor the aiding-and-abetting concept from its necessary element of culpability.

Concurring - Justice Jackson

I concur. This decision is narrow and properly rests on the particular allegations in this specific complaint. Cases with different allegations and a more developed factual record, particularly regarding the function of platform algorithms, may lead to different conclusions in the future. The common-law principles applied here do not necessarily translate to all other legal contexts.

Analysis:

This unanimous decision significantly curtails the potential liability of online platforms and other communications providers for the actions of their users under the Antiterrorism Act. The Court established a high bar for "aiding and abetting," requiring a showing of culpable participation in the specific terrorist act, not just general support for the terrorist organization. This strengthens the distinction between active, intentional assistance and the passive provision of a neutral service, which will likely make it much harder for plaintiffs to sue tech companies for terrorist attacks that are not directly facilitated by their platforms.

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