Shurat Hadin and the war on terrorists' use of social media

• Published date: 07 January 2021
• Author: YONAH JEREMY BOB
• Date: 07 January 2021
• Publication title: Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel)

The combined anger of US President Donald Trump in 2020 and of Democrats in 2016 for perceived damage to their political fortunes by social media giants has made major reforms to the tech industry more likely than ever.

But for Shurat Hadin President Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, the rest of the world is just starting to catch up to an argument she has been making for five years.

Originally, Darshan-Leitner sued Facebook, Google and Twitter for wrongful death under the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA), hoping that US courts would hold Palo Alto accountable for terrorists using their platforms for logistical and other activities that caused her clients' deaths.

In some cases, Shurat Hadin did manage to get farther than others had gotten, making Facebook sweat.

But at the end of the day, Darshan-Leitner, like those trying to sue social media for aiding with the sex-slave trafficking industry, always ran into a brick wall called the Communications Decency Act (CDA).

The CDA was originally meant to defend the fledgling new Internet industry in the 1990s, to allow it to innovate and grow. But it took both Democrats and Republicans feeling they got the raw end of the Internet's treatment in consecutive elections to achieve the sea change that may see major reforms in the coming year.

Ever the strategist, Darshan-Leitner would also be happy if the CDA could at least be partially rolled back on terrorism issues, even if all of its other many problems take longer to resolve.

Resolving the broader issues will get into tricky questions about how much freedom the Internet should have regarding political speech, and drawing the lines could break down the current unified bipartisan anger against the companies.

Shurat Hadin and others in their lawsuits had argued in recent years that the ATA was a way around giving enormous Internet companies blanket immunity.

They said that they were not suing social media for posting content, but for facilitating terrorists' logistical needs.

Their argument was that if posting that content did facilitate logistics for terrorist acts, lawsuits could not be prevented by free speech principles or hiding behind the idea that platforms are not responsible for third parties.

Shurat Hadin noted that US courts had already ruled that banks (Darshan-Leitner was involved in some key cases) can be held liable for facilitating logistics for terrorists by being a conduit for third-party terrorists' funds, even if the banks are unaware of the purpose of the...