technology giants, Google, Facebook and Twittercannot be held liable on the basis of complaints relatives of the victims of the attacks who accuse these companies of helping Islamic state spread your propaganda.

Supreme Court acquitted tech companies with his decision, without, however, entering into a broader discussion about the controversial law that protected them for a quarter of a century from prosecution for the content they post on the Internet.

nine judges they were dealing with two different cases. In the first, the parents of a young American woman who died in the Paris attacks in 2015 spoke out against Google, YouTube’s parent company.

They claimed that the giant supported the Islamic State because it recommended certain videos to users of the service.

In the second case, relatives of a Jordanian victim of an Istanbul nightclub attack on January 1, 2017, argued that Facebook, Twitter and Google could be considered “employees” because they did not make sufficient efforts to opt out of content hosted by the Islamic State on their platforms.

“The fact that some detractors benefit from these sites is not sufficient to establish that the defendants knowingly provided significant assistance to these organizations,” the judge said. Clarence Thomas explanation of the reasons for the decision.

“We have concluded that Plaintiffs’ allegations are not sufficient to establish that Defendants assisted ISIS in carrying out the attack,” the unanimous decision read.

The Supreme Court has shied away from addressing the substance of “section 230” of the Communications Act, which has been in place since 1996 and is considered the cornerstone of the Internet’s “rise” in the coming years. This text states that companies in the technology sector cannot be considered “authors” and enjoy the legal immunity of content hosted on their platforms.

AFP-Reuters