The Lawsuit
PULSE NIGHTCLUB VICTIMS VS. TWITTER, GOOGLE, & FACEBOOK
The family members of Tevin Crosby, Juan Guerrero and Javier Jorge-Reyes filed lawsuits in federal court on Monday, December 19, 2016 naming Google, Facebook and Twitter as defendants for providing material support to the terrorist group ISIS.
25-year-old Crosby, 22-year-old Guerrero and 40-year-old Reyes were murdered by ISIS inspired shooter, Omar Mateen at Pulse, a popular gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida on June 12, 2016. 49 people tragically lost their lives in what is now known as one of the worst mass shootings in U.S history.
Mateen was radicalized by consuming ISIS propaganda that was readily available on YouTube (Google), Twitter and Facebook. He identified himself as an Islamic soldier and pledged his allegiance to the Islamic State while on a call with police negotiators during the Pulse nightclub attack.
The complaint includes intelligence that in addition to providing ISIS with a platform to radicalize, recruit and plan attacks, Google, Twitter and Facebook are using ISIS’ posts to create new content. This content is created by combining ISIS posts with advertisements selected by the defendants. Once these posts and advertisements are combined, this newly created content is being served to specific viewers who have a propensity towards that particular content.
Representing the families are Keith Altman and Ari Kresch of 1-800-LAW-FIRM of Southfield, Michigan. Altman and Kresch are also the attorneys representing Reynaldo Gonzalez, the father of Nohemi Gonzalez, the American victim killed in the ISIS terror attack in Paris, France.
Javier Jorge-Reyes
Juan Ramon Guerrero
Tevin Eugene Crosby
GONZALEZ VS. TWITTER, GOOGLE, & FACEBOOK
Together with 1-800-LAW-FIRM, Reynaldo Gonzalez filed a lawsuit naming Google, Twitter and Facebook as defendants for providing material support to the terrorist group ISIS. Reynaldo Gonzalez is the grieving father of Nohemi Gonzalez, the sole American murdered by ISIS in the November 2015 Paris attacks. The lawsuit was filed in Federal Court Northern District of California on June 14th, 2016.
The lawsuit alleges that the defendants have knowingly permitted ISIS to use their sites for recruiting new members, spreading propaganda, and raising funds. Through the use of Facebook, Twitter and Youtube (Google), ISIS has acquired over 30,000 foreign recruits, countless donations from supporters, and a level of prosperity that would have been unachievable without the aid of the defendants’ social media sites.
Perhaps the most troubling fact is that the defendants not only condone this gross misuse of their platforms, but profit from it. From videos of Westerners being beheaded to other terrorist propaganda, each of the defendants place advertisements on ISIS content—profiting directly from their postings. In at least the case of Google’s YouTube, advertising revenue is shared with ISIS.
In the words of Nohemi Gonzalez’s grieving father, Reynaldo, “How many more innocent people need to die before Google, Facebook and Twitter are prohibited from making money off of terrorist propaganda? It is bad enough that I lost my daughter at the prime of her life, but to think that she died in vain is even more disturbing. I filed this lawsuit to save others from terrorists that rely on social media to plan their attacks on innocent people.” Though nothing can ever undo the tragedy that the Gonzalez family has endured, Nohemi’s father is hopeful that this lawsuit will prevent future tragedies in which Facebook, Twitter and Google are accomplices to terror groups.
“How many more innocent people need to die before Google, Facebook and Twitter are prohibited from making money off of terrorist propaganda? It is bad enough that I lost my daughter at the prime of her life, but to think that she died in vain is even more disturbing. I filed this lawsuit to save others from terrorists that rely on social media to plan their attacks on innocent people.”
– Reynaldo Gonzalez
Father of Nohemi Gonzalez
FROM THE ATTORNEYS
Attorneys Ari Kresch and Keith Altman explain the intricacies of the lawsuit in which they aim to hold Google, Facebook, and Twitter accountable for their continued material support to terrorist groups such as ISIS. Special thanks goes to our associates at LEVICK who helped with the creation of this video. LEVICK is one of the world’s leading independent strategic communications, public affairs, and business advisory consulting firms.
Infographic: The link between social media & ISIS perpetrated terrorism
