Facebook is being accused of providing “material support and resources” to Hamas in a new $1 billion lawsuit. Lawyers allege that the popular social network was used to plot attacks by the militant Palestinian group that killed four Americans and wounded one in Israel, the West Bank, and Jerusalem.

The lawsuit, which was filed on July 10 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York states:

Hamas has recognized the tremendous utility and value of Facebook as a tool to facilitate this terrorist group’s ability to communicate, recruit members, plan and carry out attacks, and strike fear in its enemies. For years, Hamas, its leaders, spokesmen, and members have openly maintained and used official Facebook accounts with little or no interference.

Shurat Hadin, an Israeli legal advocacy group, filed the lawsuit on behalf of families whose relatives were killed in terror attacks. That same group is behind another lawsuit that is currently seeking an injunction to require prompt removal of posted content that may incite violence.

Plaintiffs in the most recent lawsuit include Stuart and Robbi Force, the parents of 29-year-old U.S. Army veteran and Vanderbilt University graduate student Taylor Force who was fatally stabbed in a Hamas attack while visiting Israel on a school trip. They are joined by the parents of 16-year-old Yaakov Naftali Fraenkel, who was kidnapped and murdered in the West Bank in June 2014; the parents of three-month-old Chaya Zissel Braun, who was killed in Jerusalem during a vehicular terrorist attack in October 2014; the son of 76-year-old Richard Lakin, who was killed in a shooting and stabbing attack in Jerusalem in October 2015; and Menachem Mendel Rivkin, who was seriously injured in a January 2016 stabbing attack in Jerusalem.

These families hope to prove that Facebook was being used as a tool for terrorism and operated in direct violation of the Antiterrorism Act, which bars U.S. businesses from providing support or resources to a foreign terrorist organization. However, many experts believe Facebook will be legally protected under the  Communications Decency Act, which protects websites from content posted by third-party users.

Facebook responded to Bloomberg’s request for comment with a statement saying,

[We want] people to feel safe when using Facebook. There is no place for content encouraging violence, direct threats, terrorism or hate speech on Facebook. We have a set of Community Standards to help people understand what is allowed on Facebook, and we urge people to use our reporting tools if they find content that they believe violates our standards so we can investigate and take swift action.

It’s unclear if the lawsuit will succeed in holding Facebook legally responsible because anti-terrorism efforts and freedom of speech are both at play. It will be interesting to see how the case moves forward.

Alexis Evans

Alexis Evans is an Assistant Editor at Law Street and a Buckeye State native. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism and a minor in Business from Ohio University. Contact Alexis at aevans@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Emojis are a fun way to let your friends know exactly how you feel while you’re texting them, but, can they be harmful? In some cases, interpreting the meaning behind emojis is more difficult than you may think. What one person sends as a funny joke with a smiley face could be interpreted differently by the person receiving the message. In a world full of  miscommunications because of the lack of tone in a text message, it can be hard to tell just what an emoji means.

In this week’s emoji news, a 12-year-old girl has been charged with threatening her school on Instagram due to a post from this past December. According to the Washington Post, the girl posted an ambiguous message under a different student’s name involving several emojis, including the gun, knife, and bomb emojis. The message also had the word “killing” in it, although it is unclear what the full Instagram post actually said. Though the post was not under her name, the girl did admit that she was the one who had posted it when questioned by the authorities.

After the school received word of this potential threat, it notified the police. Police officers got a search warrant and managed to identify the girl through the IP address used to post the image. Once they determined that the threat was not credible, the authorities still charged the girl who posted the image with threatening a school and computer harassment. Her mom claims she was confused as to why her daughter would have posted something like this, but suspects that it may be in response to bullying. One of the biggest questions in the investigation was about what exactly the gun, knife, and bomb emojis really meant and whether or not they could be considered threatening.

Deciphering the meaning of emojis is becoming a growing concern as their popularity grows. This Virginia pre-teen isn’t the first person to get in trouble for posting seemingly threatening emojis online, and she most likely won’t be the last. Almost a year ago, a 17-year-old named Osiris Aristy was arrested after using a gun emoji pointed at a police officer emoji–which the police considered a threat against local officers. During the Silk Road Trial, the judge ruled that punctuation and emoticons were necessary to understanding the evidence presented to a jury, so all texts read on to the record had to include descriptions of the emoticons used. In a case last year, Jesse Enjaian claimed that messages sent to a girl he was allegedly harassing online lacked context when emojis were redacted from the messages. Enjaian argues that with the emojis, the messages took a very different tone.

The problem with emoji interpretation is that their meaning is extremely subjective. While one person might think that adding a winky face to the end of a text makes it fun and light-hearted, the person receiving the text might not feel the same way. The same issue pops up in court cases–does the addition of emojis make a statement more or less threatening? In addition to the question of how emojis can be interpreted, there is also the question of how our First Amendment Rights apply to the internet. Can we really say whatever we want? And where do we draw the line when it comes to threatening or violent speech?

There’s not a whole lot of answers to these questions yet since the age of cyberbullying and emoji use is basically brand new. What everyone should take into careful consideration when texting, tweeting, or posting anything online is the fact that, no matter how funny you may think you’re being, the meaning of your words can be twisted or lost in translation when communicating on the internet.

Alexandra Simone

Alex Simone is an Editorial Senior Fellow at Law Street and a student at The George Washington University, studying Political Science. She is passionate about law and government, but also enjoys the finer things in life like watching crime dramas and enjoying a nice DC brunch. Contact Alex at ASimone@LawStreetmedia.com

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