Fields

ORDER GRANTING MOTION TO DISMISS

INTRODUCTION

In November 2015, Lloyd “Carl” Fields, Jr. and James Damon Creach were shot and killed while working as United States government contractors at a law enforcement training center in Amman, Jordan. The shooter was a Jordanian police officer who had been studying at the center. In subsequent statements, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (“ISIS”) claimed responsibility for the attack, describing the gunman as a “lone wolf.” Plaintiffs, the wife of Fields and the wife and children of Creach, seek to hold defendant Twitter, Inc. (“Twitter”) liable under 18 U.S.C. § 2333 (a), part of the Anti-Terrorism Act (“ATA”), on the theory that Twitter provided material support to ISIS by allowing ISIS to sign up for and use Twitter accounts, and that this material support was a proximate cause of the November 2015 shooting.

Twitter moves to dismiss on several grounds, including that plaintiffs’ claims are barred by the Communications Decency Act (“CDA”), 47 U.S.C. § 230 (c). As horrific as these deaths were, under the CDA Twitter cannot be treated as a publisher or speaker of ISIS’s hateful rhetoric and is not liable under the facts alleged.…