Al-Ahmed v. Twitter, Inc.

Background

Ali Al-Ahmed alleged that, between 2013 and 2015, former Twitter employees Ahmad Abouammo and Ali Hamad A. Alzabarah accessed Twitter user information without authorization and provided it to Saudi government officials. Al-Ahmed alleged that his Arabic Twitter account was among the accounts breached and that private information, including his phone number and email address, was compromised. He also alleged that the breach contributed to harm directed at him and people who followed or contacted him.

Al-Ahmed further alleged that Twitter suspended his Arabic account in 2018, preventing him from accessing his followers and sources. His complaint asserted claims under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, the Stored Communications Act, California’s Unfair Competition Law, breach of contract, intrusion upon seclusion, unjust enrichment, promissory estoppel, negligence, negligent hiring and supervision, civil conspiracy, and replevin.

Twitter moved to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1), which allows dismissal for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction, and Rule 12(b)(6), which allows dismissal when a complaint does not adequately state a legally actionable claim. Twitter also sought to have certain documents considered through judicial notice or incorporation by reference, doctrines that allow a court to consider specified materials when deciding a dismissal motion.

Documents Considered by the Court

The court granted Twitter’s request to incorporate by reference its December 2015 notices to potentially affected users. It denied the request as to records showing who received the notices, a Twitter message attributed to Al-Ahmed, and a screenshot of his account. The court also granted judicial notice of specified publicly available webpages, posts, press materials, and Twitter terms of service.

Standing

Article III standing requires an injury that is concrete and particularized, traceable to the defendant’s conduct, and capable of being remedied by a favorable decision. The court rejected Al-Ahmed’s arguments that a statutory violation alone established standing and that he had separately pleaded concrete financial harm. The court nevertheless held that an invasion of privacy, including disclosure of private information, was sufficiently concrete and particularized to establish standing.

The court found that Al-Ahmed had not adequately connected the alleged breach of his account to the disappearance, arrest, or execution of his followers. But it held that the alleged privacy injury to Al-Ahmed himself was fairly traceable to the conduct of the former Twitter employees, and that this theory could be attributed to Twitter under a theory of responsibility for employee conduct. The court therefore concluded that Al-Ahmed had Article III standing.

Statute of Limitations

The court held that all claims against Twitter based on the unauthorized intrusion into Al-Ahmed’s account were barred by the applicable statutes of limitations. Under California’s discovery rule, a claim generally begins when the plaintiff discovers, or has reason to discover, the factual basis for the claim. The court concluded that Twitter’s December 2015 notice gave Al-Ahmed sufficient notice of the account compromise, even if he did not know the identities or precise roles of the employees involved.

The court rejected Al-Ahmed’s argument that the limitations period did not begin until the employees were indicted in November 2019. It also rejected his arguments based on fraudulent concealment, finding that he had not alleged facts showing deceptive conduct by Twitter or reasonable diligence that prevented earlier discovery. The court further held that the continuous-accrual doctrine did not apply because the 2015 intrusion and the 2018 account suspension were distinct events, and the continued suspension was not a series of separate wrongful acts.

The court determined that claims related to the 2018 suspension with four-year limitation periods could survive the time bar. It identified the breach-of-contract claim, the Unfair Competition Law claim, and the promissory-estoppel claim based on breach of contract as potentially timely to the extent they concerned the suspension. The court then analyzed those claims under federal online-platform immunity.

Section 230 Immunity

Section 230(c)(1) of the Communications Decency Act generally prevents an interactive computer service from being treated as the publisher or speaker of information provided by another information content provider. The court held that Twitter qualified as an interactive computer service and that claims arising from suspending an account treated Twitter as a publisher of third-party content. It therefore held that Section 230 immunity covered the suspension-related claims.

The court rejected Al-Ahmed’s arguments that Section 230 immunity was inconsistent with the statute’s policies, applied only to public communications, or required Twitter to show good faith. Twitter invoked Section 230(c)(1), which the court held does not contain the good-faith requirement found in Section 230(c)(2). The court also rejected the argument that Twitter had developed unlawful content in a way that would remove the immunity.

The court stated that Section 230 immunity extended to all of Al-Ahmed’s suspension-based claims except his contract theory based on Twitter’s failure to provide an adequate explanation for the suspension and to meaningfully address his appeal. The court dismissed that remaining theory as well, finding that Al-Ahmed’s complaint did not identify a contractual promise by Twitter to explain suspensions or handle appeals in the manner he alleged.

Disposition

Judge Edward M. Chen granted Twitter’s motion to dismiss in its entirety. The court allowed Al-Ahmed to file a First Amended Complaint within 30 days asserting a possible Lanham Act claim that might fall within the Communications Decency Act’s intellectual-property exception. The opinion does not state that the dismissal was with or without prejudice.