Twitter was accused Wednesday, February 22, of turning a blind eye to the online actions of the jihadist group Islamic State (IS), during a hearing in the United States Supreme Court, charged with deciding whether the social network could be prosecuted in the justice. for complicity in acts of terrorism.
The nine judges of the instance have accepted a complaint presented by the relatives of a victim of an IS attack in a nightclub in Istanbul in 2017. According to the family, Twitter is complicit in this act of terrorism for not having eliminated the group’s tweets . or stop recommending those tweets (via automated algorithms).
“expert help”
The platform, supported by its rivals (Google, Facebook, etc.), assures for its part that being a service used by tens of millions of people in the world does not prove that it “knowingly helps” terrorist groups.
A hearing on a similar issue took place on Tuesday, February 21: the family of a victim of the 2015 Paris terrorist attacks accuses YouTube (a Google affiliate) of having supported the growth of ISIS by suggesting videos of the group to some users. .
At the center of the two complaints is “Section 230,” a 1996 law that grants digital companies legal immunity for content posted by Internet users on their platforms. The main companies in the sector defend tooth and nail this status of hosts -and not of publishers- which, according to them, has allowed the arrival of the Internet as it has been taking shape.
Complicit in acts of terrorism
Supreme Court justices on Tuesday expressed doubts about the current relevance of Section 230, but also their reluctance to influence the fate of a law that has become critical to the digital economy. On Wednesday, they made numerous hypotheses to determine how the platforms could be considered complicit in acts of terrorism.
In 1997, “CNN did an interview with Osama bin Laden, a very famous interview… According to your theory, could CNN have been prosecuted for complicity in the 9/11 attacks?” Judge Brett Kavanaugh asked, for example.
In the United States Congress, many voices are calling for a revision of Section 230. But given the very different perspectives on the left and the right, legislative efforts to amend the text have never been successful.
Source: BFM TV
