#TECHNOLOGY NEWS JANUARY 31, 2018 / 1:23 PM / UPDATED 2 HOURS AGO

Lawsuit saying Twitter aided Islamic State thrown out by U.S. appeals court

Jonathan Stempel
3 MIN READ

(Reuters) - A federal appeals court in San Francisco ruled on Wednesday that Twitter Inc is not liable to families of two U.S. government contractors killed in an Islamic State attack in Jordan for having failed to block that group from using its accounts and messaging services.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 3-0 that the families failed to show that the Nov. 9, 2015 shooting deaths of Lloyd Fields and James Creach at a police training center in Amman resulted from Twitter’s knowing material support of Islamic State, which claimed responsibility for the attack.

Circuit Judge Milan Smith said no damages were justified under the federal Anti-Terrorism Act because the plaintiffs, who include the victims’ widows, did not show “at least some direct relationship” between their injuries and Twitter’s conduct.

He said the plaintiffs did not show any connection between Twitter and the shooter, Jordanian police officer Anwar Abu Zeid, or that the attack was helped by or resulted from Islamic State’s presence on Twitter. The gunman was later killed by local security forces.

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