CALIFORNIA (Web Desk) – A US woman filed a lawsuit against Twitter charging the social network of assisting communication between terrorists and fueling the growth of IS.
She alleged that Twitter has knowingly permitted IS to spread misinformation and recruit members, she said.
The lawsuit was filed in the federal court in Oakland, California on Wednesday.
“Without Twitter, the explosive growth of ISIS over the last few years into the most-feared terrorist group in the world would not have been possible,” she said in a complaint.
Tamara Fields’ husband, Lloyd Fields, was killed in a shooting spree at a Jordanian police training center in November. IS later claimed responsibility for the attack.
“While we believe the lawsuit is without merit, we are deeply saddened to hear of this family’s terrible loss,” Twitter said in a statement.
“Violent threats and the promotion of terrorism deserve no place on Twitter and, like other social networks, our rules make that clear,” it added.
In 2015, Twitter received more than a thousand demands to take down information from around the world. It approved 42 percent of those requests, most of which came from governments, law enforcement, or courts.
The Obama administration announced last Friday that it has set up a task force to curb the terrorist organization’s online activity.
A number of officials have previously expressed concern about the use of Twitter by terror groups.
“Twitter works as a way to sell books, as a way to promote movies, and it works as a way to crowdsource terrorism – to sell murder,” FBI Director Comey said.
A study conducted last year by the Brookings Institution, a Washington-based think tank, found that there were anywhere between from 46,000 to 90,000 Twitter accounts belonging to IS supporters.
IS-supporters’ Twitter accounts had about a thousand followers on average, the study said.
