Familes of Americans killed in Brussels, Paris attacks sue Twitter

NEW YORK, Jan. 10 (UPI) -- Relatives of three U.S. citizens killed during the Islamic State's attacks on Belgium and Paris filed a lawsuit against Twitter, accusing the social media platform of conspiring with the terrorist group.

Filed Sunday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, the lawsuit alleges Twitter failed to keep members of IS, also known as ISIS, ISIL and Daesh, off the platform.

The lawsuit cites the U.S. Anti-Terrorism Act, alleging Twitter "knowingly provided material support and resources to ISIS, a notorious terrorist organization that has engaged in and continues to commit terror attacks, including the March 22, 2016, terrorist attacks in Brussels, Belgium, that murdered 32 people, including Mr. Alexander Pinczowski and his sister Ms. Sascha Pinczowski, and the November 13, 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris, France, that murdered 130 people, including Ms. Nohemi Gonzalez."

Twitter began cracking down by suspending accounts related to the Islamic State in the summer of 2015. In August 2016, Twitter said it had suspended about 350,000 Twitter accounts linked to the Islamic State since mid-2015.

In August, a U.S. judge dismissed a lawsuit against Twitter filed by the wife of an American killed in Jordan alleging the company knowingly let the Islamic State use the platform to raise funds, spread its radical propaganda and to recruit.

In December, the families of three victims of the Pulse nightclub massacre in Orlando, Fla., filed a lawsuit against Facebook, Twitter and Google, accusing them of providing support to the Islamic State.

The new lawsuit alleges "Twitter engaged in negligent behavior by providing services to ISIS."

"ISIS has used Twitter to cultivate and maintain an image of brutality, to instill greater fear and intimidation, and to appear unstoppable, by disseminating videos and images of numerous beheadings and other brutal killings, including setting captives on fire, blowing them up with explosives, slowly lowering them in a cage underwater to drown, and more," the lawsuit alleges. "Twitter thus conspired with ISIS in its illegal provision of Twitter to promote and carry out ISIS's illegal acts of international terrorism, including the acts that injured plaintiffs. ISIS thus uses Twitter to actually carry out essential communication components of ISIS's terror attacks. Simply put, ISIS uses Twitter as a tool and a weapon of terrorism."