Israeli legal rights group files lawsuit against Twitter over role in ISIS attacks

An Israeli group is suing Twitter for its alleged role in aiding and abetting ISIS terror.

Shurat HaDin-Israel Law Center, a Tel Aviv-based legal rights organization, has filed a lawsuit against Twitter over the social media giant’s alleged role in aiding and abetting the Islamic State (ISIS) terror group in attacks in Paris in November 2015 and Brussels in March 2016.

In Paris, ISIS terrorists murdered 132 people in several coordinated attacks. In a double ISIS attack in Brussles, 34 people were killed and scores wounded in simultaneous explosions at the Brussels airport and subway system.

Shurat HaDin filed the lawsuit on behalf of the families of victims of the terror attacks.

“This is the first lawsuit to document Twitter’s key role in the rise of ISIS to become the most feared terrorist organization in the world, and to detail how ISIS used Twitter specifically in connection with two of the worst terror attacks in Europe’s recent history,” Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, director of Shurat HaDin, said in a statement.

“Among social media platforms, Twitter has most brazenly refused to cut off its services to terrorists, taking the position that ‘the tweets must flow’ even if it means assisting in mass murders,” she said.

The victims described in the lawsuit include Alexander Pinczowski, 29, and his sister Sascha Pinczowski, 26, who were killed by an ISIS suicide bomber at the Brussels Airport, as well as Nohemi Gonzalez, 26, who died in the coordinated Paris attacks.

Through the lawsuit, titled Cain v. Twitter, the victims’ families claim that ISIS used Twitter “as a weapon of terror, including through bots, special apps and ‘hashtag highjacking’ to inflate its image, recruit members and grow into the most-feared terrorist organization in the world.”

“This lawsuit reveals direct connections between Twitter and terror, and when justice is done in this case, it will force Twitter and others to conclude that supporting terror does not pay,” Darshan-Leitner said.

Similar Suit Failed

A similar suit was filed against Twitter in the US last year. In August, a US judge dismissed the lawsuit accusing Twitter of supporting ISIS by allowing the terror group to publish its content on the social media platform.

The suit was filed at a San Francisco federal court by the families of two men killed in Jordan during an ISIS attack in 2015. They claimed that Twitter had contributed to the deaths by allowing ISIS to use Twitter accounts.

“As horrific as these deaths were…Twitter cannot be treated as a publisher or speaker of ISIS’s hateful rhetoric and is not liable under the facts alleged,” District Judge William Orrick wrote in his ruling.

By: JNS.org and World Israel News Staff

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