New York: The father of a Paris terror attack victim has filed a lawsuit against Twitter, Google and Facebook for allowing Islamic State (IS) to use their platforms to spread terrorist propaganda, the media reported on Thursday.
The lawsuit, filed in the US District Court in Northern California by Reynaldo Gonzalez, the father of Nohemi Gonzalez who was among the 130 killed in November in Paris, said these social media giants also allowed IS to raise funds and hire recruits, the International Business Times reported.
According to a Mirror report, IS leader Omar Hussain used the social networking website Facebook to recruit members for the Paris attacks. The IS supporters have tweeted photos of dead soldiers with the hashtag #Amessagefrom ISIS to US on the micro-blogging site Twitter.
Several beheading videos have appeared on Google-owned video-streaming platform YouTube.
In January, a Florida-based woman filed a lawsuit against Twitter, accusing it of supporting the global spread of the IS by enabling its followers to recruit on its social media platform.
Tamara Fields, whose husband was killed in a lone wolf terrorist attack in Amman, Jordan, in November last year, sued Twitter for damages.
"Without Twitter, the explosive growth of IS over the last few years into the most-feared terrorist group in the world would not have been possible," she wrote in her lawsuit.
Twitter has knowingly permitted IS to spread propaganda and recruit members, she added.
Twitter rejected the lawsuit’s claims, “While we believe the lawsuit is without merit, we are deeply saddened to hear of this family’s terrible loss,” a Twitter spokesperson was quoted as saying in a statement.
“Like people around the world, we are horrified by the atrocities perpetrated by extremist groups and their ripple effects on the Internet. Violent threats and the promotion of terrorism deserve no place on Twitter and, like other social networks, our rules make that clear,” it added.