New York Post

Orlando kin suing Web behemoths

Hit F’book, Google, Twitter

- By JULIA MARSH

Families of four Orlando nightclub-shooting victims are suing Twitter, Google and Facebook, claiming the social-media giants are promoting terrorism — and even helping fund it.

ISIS-inspired gunman Omar Mateen killed 49 people and wounded 53 others at the Pulse nightclub in June in the nation’s deadliest mass shooting.

It ended when a SWAT team killed Mateen, 29.

“ISIS’s use of social media directly influenced [Mateen’s] actions on the night of the Orlando massacre,” the Michigan federal suit states.

It also noted that FBI Director James Comey said he’s “highly confident that this killer was radicalize­d at least in part through the Internet.”

Mateen viewed jihadist speeches online, downloaded videos of beheadings and searched Facebook for posts relating to the radical Islamist couple who killed 14 people at a San Bernardino, Calif., holiday party last December, the suit says.

Without Twitter, Facebook and Google, “ISIS would not have been able to radicalize Omar Mateen leading to the deadly attack in Orlando,” the suit says.

ISIS has recruited 30,000 followers via the Web sites since 2013, the filing states.

“For years, defendants have knowingly and recklessly provided the terrorist group ISIS with accounts to use its social networks as a tool for spreading extremist propaganda, raising funds and attracting new recruits,” the suit says.

Family members of Pulse victims Tevin Eugene Crosby, 25, Juan Ramon Guerrero, 22, and Javier Jorge-Reyes, 40, filed the case, claiming the social-media companies had violated an antiterror­ism law by providing “material support” to ISIS.

ISIS raises money through Twitter and Facebook while Google even shares ad revenue with ISIS, the suit claims.

The Michigan case is the second such suit against Twitter. The first, related to a “lone wolf ” terrorist who murdered two Americans in Jordan, was tossed out by a California judge who cited the 1996 Communicat­ions Decency Act.

That law absolves sites like Twitter of liability for content posted by third parties.

A spokeswoma­n for Facebook said there is “no place on Facebook for groups that engage in terrorist activity.”

“We sympathize with the victims and their families,” the spokeswoma­n added.

Google did not respond to a request for comment, and Twitter declined to comment.

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