Google, Facebook and Twitter are being sued by families of the Orlando shooting victims for allowing Isis propaganda to proliferate on their services.
Families of Tevin Crosby, Javier Jorge-Reyes and Juan Ramon Guerrero, all killed during the June 12 attacks at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, are arguing the services provided “material support [that] has been instrumental to the rise of Isis and has enabled it to carry out or cause to be carried out, numerous terrorist attacks, including the June 12, 2016, attack in Orlando where 53 were injured and 49 were killed.” The man behind the shootings, 29-year-old Omar Mateen, pledged allegiance to Isis before being killed himself.
Read more: Facebook and Twitter must tackle hate speech or face new laws
The suit, filed in Detroit on December 19 and published by the Washington Post, accuses all three firms of having “knowingly and recklessly provided the terrorist group Isis with accounts to use its social networks as a tool for spreading extremist propaganda, raising funds, and attracting new recruits”, for years.
It goes on to claim all three have also benefitted financially from Isis posts due to advertisements, and enabled the “explosive growth” of the organisation. In this way, and by suggesting Facebook, Twitter and Google are not just third-party bystanders but “information content providers because they create unique content by combining Isis postings with advertisements in a way that is specifically targeted at the viewer”, the complainants hope to get around US law that protects technology companies from being liable for content posted by users.
Twitter in particular has previously been accused of not doing enough to tackle abuse, harassment and hate speech on its platform, only providing new measures in the past 12 months, such as the ability to report multiple abusive tweets at once. The suit argues that Isis accounts on Twitter have been able to grow “at an astonishing rate” since 2010.
“Until recently, Isis maintained official accounts on Twitter unfettered - these official accounts included media outlets, regional hubs and well-known Isis members, some with tens of thousands of followers.” In August, Twitter told WIRED that it had suspended 235,000 accounts for promoting terrorism in the previous six months, and most recently Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter and Google-owned YouTube have launched a shared database of terrorist material uncovered on their networks, in a bid to speed up the removal of harmful content.
This latest action has been reactive rather than proactive, however. The tech giants have been under increased scrutiny and criticism by the UK government after the Home Affairs Select Committee found it was “consciously failing” to combat extremist groups on their sites, and needed to show a “greater sense of responsibility”.
After the companies failed to remove hate speech within 24 hours of notifications, under EU guidelines they each agreed to, they have also been told that if they do not take significant steps to remedy the problem soon, laws may be written to force them to do so. German authorities are already considering new legislation or fines to be brought in in the new year to tackle the problem, it was announced.
WIRED has contacted all three companies for comment and will update this article accordingly.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
