(New York, NY) -- The Counter Extremism Project (CEP) CEO Ambassador Mark D.Wallace said today that a lawsuit filed against Twitter by the family of a Florida man killed in Jordan by ISIS highlights the dangers and personal costs resulting from the unchecked misuse of social media platforms by extremists.
“Since 2014, we have called on Twitter to take action to prevent the weaponization of its platform by cyber jihadis,” said Wallace. "Twitter has been slow to act at best. Clearly one of the potential perils to Twitter is knowing of this problem, being warned of this problem, and failing to take full action. This may give rise to Twitter’s potential liability in U.S. courts. At what point does the failure to act become effectively 'material support' under U.S. law? This lawsuit is the latest in a continuing string of wake-up calls to Twitter. Twitter must do more to end the jihadi presence on its site. We stand ready to work with them to remove extremist content from Twitter.”
The lawsuit alleges that Twitter’s service to ISIS constitutes 'material support' to the preparation and carrying out of acts of international terrorism, including the attack in which Lloyd Fields, Jr. was killed.” Fields, a 46-year-old government contractor, traveled to Jordan in June 2015 to help train police. He and four others were killed in November by a Jordanian officer, with ISIS later claiming responsibility for the “lone wolf” attack.
CEP has specifically appealed to Twitter to proactively and permanently remove individual accounts and networks of ISIS supporters and advocated for tougher rules that would make it more difficult for extremists to propagandize, radicalize, recruit, and raise money using the power of the Internet. Through its ongoing #CEPDigitalDisruption campaign, CEP has reported hundreds of Twitter accounts that threaten individuals and groups or advocate for violence. A team of CEP researchers meticulously identifies and tracks extremists and their supporters tweeting in English, Arabic, Turkish, French, German, and Italian.