The issues in the case of Yuksel v. Twitter were whether Twitter, by terminating plaintiff’s account (1) breached its contract with plaintiff, and (2) violated the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (“RICO”). Twitter moved to dismiss the breach of contract and RICO claims. The court granted the motion because Section 230 barred the claims and because plaintiff failed to plausibly allege the claims.
The gist of plaintiff’s claims centered on allegations that Twitter suspended plaintiff’s account due to deference to the Turkish government. He claims that by being cut from his 142,000 followers and by having 7 years’ worth of “intellectual content” destroyed, he was damaged to the tune of $142 million.
Section 230 immunity
The court held that Twitter was immune from plaintiff’s claims, under 47 U.S.C. §230(c)(1). That provision states that:
No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.
If found that Twitter is a provider of an interactive computer service, and that plaintiff sought to hold Twitter liable for decisions regarding information provided by another information content provider. In this situation, that other information content provider was plaintiff himself. The court also found that plaintiff sought to treat Twitter as a publisher in connection with its decision to suspend his account. But the decision to suspend an account is within the scope of “traditional publishing functions”. Quoting the well-known case of Barnes v. Yahoo!, Inc., 570 F.3d 1096, 1102 (9th Cir. 2009), the court noted that “removing content is something publishers do.”
Plaintiff tried to get around Section 230 immunity by asserting that his RICO claim fit into the statute’s carveout for federal criminal prosecution (Section 230 (e)(1) provides that “[n]othing in this section shall be construed to impair the enforcement of . . . any . . . Federal criminal statute.”) The court rejected this argument, concluding that the carveout from immunity extends only to criminal prosecutions and not civil actions based on criminal statutes.
Failure to state a claim
The court held that even without Section 230 immunity, the breach of contract and RICO claims would fail. Plaintiff had alleged breach of contract in the complaint, but in responding to the motion to dismiss stated that he did not claim breach of contract between himself and Twitter, but rather asked the court to find Twitter’s terms of service unenforceable because they permit the arbitrary and reckless deletion of user accounts. The court noted that it was constrained to not look beyond the complaint to allegations plaintiff made only in response to Twitter’s motion to dismiss.
On the RICO claim, the court found that plaintiff failed to identify the “enterprise” subject to the RICO claim, nor any purported “pattern,” “racketeering activity,” or “injury” to “business or property” caused by it. Moreover, according to the court, plaintiff’s conclusory allegations that Twitter was somehow in cahoots with foreign dictators failed to meet basic pleading standards in federal court.
Yuksel v. Twitter, Inc., 2022 WL 16748612 (N.D. California, November 7, 2022)
See also: