The "Just Like Everyone Else" Test: Providing Off-the-Shelf Services Isn't Tortious Aiding & Abetting

Today's Twitter v. Taamneh, Inc. involved (to oversimplify slightly) a lawsuit against Twitter based on Twitter's alleged role in helping ISIS by providing it publishing services, and by algorithmically recommending some of ISIS's videos. The lawsuit was brought under the federal Antiterrorism Act, but the Act applied fairly traditional aiding-and-abetting principles, borrowed from the criminal law and tort law. (The tort law and criminal law principles aren't always identical, but they seemed to be treated similarly in this case.)

No liability, the Court held, chiefly because Twitter (and others) merely provided an off-the-shelf service, which treated ISIS no better than any other user. Here's an excerpt, with the references to this arms-length treatment emphasized:

To start, recall the basic ways that defendants as a group allegedly helped ISIS. First, ISIS was active on defendants' social-media platforms, which are generally available to the internet-using public with little to no front-end screening by defendants. In other words, ISIS was able to upload content to the platforms and connect with third parties, just like everyone else.

Second, defendants' recommendation algorithms matched ISIS-related content to users most likely to be interested in that content—again, just like any other content. And, third, defendants allegedly knew that ISIS was uploading this content to such effect, but took insufficient steps to ensure that ISIS supporters and ISIS-related content were removed from their platforms. Notably, plaintiffs never allege that ISIS used defendants' platforms to plan or coordinate the Reina attack; in fact, they do not allege that Masharipov himself ever used Facebook, YouTube, or Twitter.

None of those allegations suggest that defendants culpably "associate[d themselves] with" the Reina attack, "participate[d] in it as something that [they] wishe[d] to bring about," or sought "by [their] action to make it succeed." In part, that is because the only affirmative "conduct" defendants allegedly undertook was creating their platforms and setting up their algorithms to display content relevant to user inputs and user history. Plaintiffs never allege that, after defendants established their platforms, they gave ISIS any special treatment or words of encouragement.

Nor is there reason to think that defendants selected or took any action at all with respect to ISIS' content (except, perhaps, blocking some of it). {Plaintiffs concede that defendants attempted to remove at least some ISIS-sponsored accounts and content after they were brought to their attention.} Indeed, there is not even reason to think that defendants carefully screened any content before allowing users to upload it onto their platforms. If anything, the opposite is true: By plaintiffs' own allegations, these platforms appear to transmit most content without inspecting it.

The mere creation of those platforms, however, is not culpable. To be sure, it might be that bad actors like ISIS are able to use platforms like defendants' for illegal—and sometimes terrible—ends. But the same could be said of cell phones, email, or the internet generally. Yet, we generally do not think that internet or cell service providers incur culpability merely for providing their services to the public writ large. Nor do we think that such providers would normally be described as aiding and abetting, for example, illegal drug deals brokered over cell phones—even if the provider's conference-call or video-call features made the sale easier.

To be sure, plaintiffs assert that defendants' "recommendation" algorithms go beyond passive aid and constitute active, substantial assistance. We disagree. By plaintiffs' own telling, their claim is based on defendants' "provision of the infrastructure which provides material support to ISIS." Viewed properly, defendants' "recommendation" algorithms are merely part of that infrastructure. All the content on their platforms is filtered through these algorithms, which allegedly sort the content by information and inputs provided by users and found in the content itself. As presented here, the algorithms appear agnostic as to the nature of the content, matching any content (including ISIS' content) with any user who is more likely to view that content. The fact that these algorithms matched some ISIS content with some users thus does not convert defendants' passive assistance into active abetting. Once the platform and sorting-tool algorithms were up and running, defendants at most allegedly stood back and watched; they are not alleged to have taken any further action with respect to ISIS.

At bottom, then, the claim here rests less on affirmative misconduct and more on an alleged failure to stop ISIS from using these platforms. But, as noted above, both tort and criminal law have long been leery of imposing aiding-and-abetting liability for mere passive nonfeasance. To show that defendants' failure to stop ISIS from using these platforms is somehow culpable with respect to the Reina attack, a strong showing of assistance and scienter would thus be required. Plaintiffs have not made that showing.

First, the relationship between defendants and the Reina attack is highly attenuated. As noted above, defendants' platforms are global in scale and allow hundreds of millions (or billions) of people to upload vast quantities of information on a daily basis. Yet, there are no allegations that defendants treated ISIS any differently from anyone else. Rather, defendants' relationship with ISIS and its supporters appears to have been the same as their relationship with their billion-plus other users: arm's length, passive, and largely indifferent. And their relationship with the Reina attack is even further removed, given the lack of allegations connecting the Reina attack with ISIS' use of these platforms.

Second, because of the distance between defendants' acts (or failures to act) and the Reina attack, plaintiffs would need some other very good reason to think that defendants were consciously trying to help or otherwise "participate in" the Reina attack. But they have offered no such reason, let alone a good one. Again, plaintiffs point to no act of encouraging, soliciting, or advising the commission of the Reina attack that would normally support an aiding-and-abetting claim. Rather, they essentially portray defendants as bystanders, watching passively as ISIS carried out its nefarious schemes. Such allegations do not state a claim for culpable assistance or participation in the Reina attack.

Because plaintiffs' complaint rests so heavily on defendants' failure to act, their claims might have more purchase if they could identify some independent duty in tort that would have required defendants to remove ISIS' content. But plaintiffs identify no duty that would require defendants or other communication-providing services to terminate customers after discovering that the customers were using the service for illicit ends. {Plaintiffs have not presented any case holding such a company liable for merely failing to block such criminals despite knowing that they used the company's services. Rather, when legislatures have wanted to impose a duty to remove content on these types of entities, they have apparently done so by statute.} To be sure, there may be situations where some such duty exists, and we need not resolve the issue today. Even if there were such a duty here, it would not transform defendants' distant inaction into knowing and substantial assistance that could establish aiding and abetting the Reina attack….

To be sure, we cannot rule out the possibility that some set of allegations involving aid to a known terrorist group would justify holding a secondary defendant liable for all of the group's actions or perhaps some definable subset of terrorist acts. There may be, for example, situations where the provider of routine services does so in an unusual way or provides such dangerous wares that selling those goods to a terrorist group could constitute aiding and abetting a foreseeable terror attack. Cf. Direct Sales Co. v. United States (1943) (registered morphine distributor could be liable as a coconspirator of an illicit operation to which it mailed morphine far in excess of normal amounts). Or, if a platform consciously and selectively chose to promote content provided by a particular terrorist group, perhaps it could be said to have culpably assisted the terrorist group. Cf. Passaic Daily News v. Blair (N.J. 1973) (publishing employment advertisements that discriminate on the basis of sex could aid and abet the discrimination). [The newspaper in that case had itself created separate "male," "female," and "male-female" "help wanted" columns. -EV]

In those cases, the defendants would arguably have offered aid that is more direct, active, and substantial than what we review here; in such cases, plaintiffs might be able to establish liability with a lesser showing of scienter. But we need not consider every iteration on this theme. In this case, it is enough that there is no allegation that the platforms here do more than transmit information by billions of people, most of whom use the platforms for interactions that once took place via mail, on the phone, or in public areas. The fact that some bad actors took advantage of these platforms is insufficient to state a claim that defendants knowingly gave substantial assistance and thereby aided and abetted those wrongdoers' acts. And that is particularly true because a contrary holding would effectively hold any sort of communication provider liable for any sort of wrongdoing merely for knowing that the wrongdoers were using its services and failing to stop them. That conclusion would run roughshod over the typical limits on tort liability and take aiding and abetting far beyond its essential culpability moorings….

The Ninth Circuit thus erred in focusing (as it did) primarily on the value of defendants' platforms to ISIS, rather than whether defendants culpably associated themselves with ISIS' actions. For example, when applying the second factor [from an earlier precedent] (the amount and kind of assistance), the Ninth Circuit should have considered that defendants' platforms and content-sorting algorithms were generally available to the internet-using public. That focus reveals that ISIS' ability to benefit from these platforms was merely incidental to defendants' services and general business models; it was not attributable to any culpable conduct of defendants directed toward ISIS. And, when considering the fourth and fifth factors (the defendants' relationship to ISIS and the defendants' state of mind), the Ninth Circuit should have given much greater weight to defendants' arm's-length relationship with ISIS—which was essentially no different from their relationship with their millions or billions of other users—and their undisputed lack of intent to support ISIS.

Taken as a whole, the Ninth Circuit's analytic approach thus elided the fundamental question of aiding-and-abetting liability: Did defendants consciously, voluntarily, and culpably participate in or support the relevant wrongdoing? As we have explained above, the answer in this case is no. Plaintiffs allege only that defendants supplied generally available virtual platforms that ISIS made use of, and that defendants failed to stop ISIS despite knowing it was using those platforms. Given the lack of nexus between that assistance and the Reina attack, the lack of any defendant intending to assist ISIS, and the lack of any sort of affirmative and culpable misconduct that would aid ISIS, plaintiffs' claims fall far short of plausibly alleging that defendants aided and abetted the Reina attack….

The generic language of the statute, which covers anyone "who aids and abets, by knowingly providing substantial assistance, or who conspires with the person who committed such an act of international terrorism," could have been read more broadly (since the provider of off-the-shelf services may know that the services are substantially helping a criminal, alongside all the other noncriminal users). But the Court made clear that it shouldn't be read that broadly; that seems quite correct to me.