The Supreme Court on Thursday punted the issue of when internet companies are protected under a controversial liability shield by resolving the case on other grounds.

The justices were considering two lawsuits against Google and Twitter, both brought by families of terrorist attack victims, who said the companies should be held liable for their relatives’ deaths by aiding-and-abetting ISIS.

Google asserted that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which was enacted in 1996 to prevent internet companies from being held liable for content posted by third parties, protected the company from all of the claims.

But rather than wading into the weighty Section 230 dispute, which internet companies say allows them to serve users and protect them from a deluge of litigation, the court on Thursday found neither company had any underlying liability to need the protections.

In the Twitter case, conservative Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for a unanimous court that the plaintiffs’ allegations fell “far short of plausibly alleging that defendants aided and abetted the Reina attack.”

In the Google case, the court wrote in an unsigned opinion: “Rather, we think it sufficient to acknowledge that much (if not all) of plaintiffs’ complaint seems to fail under either our decision in Twitter or the Ninth Circuit’s unchallenged holdings below. We therefore decline to address the application of §230 to a complaint that appears to state little, if any, plausible claim for relief,” 

The Hill reached out to Google and Twitter for comment. 

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