Attorney General Lynn Fitch led a bipartisan coalition of 23 State Attorneys General in an amicus brief supporting a petition for certiorari by a young man seeking to hold Snapchat accountable for its rolein the sexual abuse he suffered at the hands of his teacher.
In Doe v Snap, thesocial media platform has so far been able to use Section 230 of theCommunications Decency Act to shield itself from any accountability. TheAttorneys General argue that Section 230 is being misinterpreted by lowercourts and ask the Supreme Court to take the case and realign the law with itstext and intended purposes.“Over the years, the overbroad application of Section 230 has allowed theonline world to become a safe haven for predators and a more dangerous placefor children,” said Attorney General Lynn Fitch.
“Court after court haspermitted social media platforms to use it to escape any accountability for theharms they facilitate. Misinterpretation of Section 230 has enabled a parade ofhorrors, including the abuse the boy in this case suffered. We ask the Court toconsider restoring balance to a law that has been led far afield from its text andone of its fundamental intended purposes – the protection of children.”The Attorneys General note in their brief, “Plaintiffs have gone after platformsfor their role in sex trafficking and abuse, the proliferation of childpornography, cyberbullying and harassment, terrorism, trafficking illegal drugsand guns, and more. Courts have mostly blocked such lawsuits under section230 – largely at the pleadings stage, when a plaintiff’s allegations, in all theirhorror, are taken as true .... As companies have racked up victory after victory,year after year, they have become increasingly brazen in condoning and aidingdangerous and illegal conduct on their platforms.”In the underlying case, a fifteen-year-old boy was groomed by his teacher usingSnapchat, which automatically deletes messages. The teacher sent him explicitcontent to coerce him into a sexual relationship and drug use. The boy suedSnapchat, saying it facilitated the abuse with its defective design. The Texas
district court dismissed the suit early and a panel of the Fifth Circuit Court ofAppeals affirmed, both noting that precedents providing broad immunity underSection 230 bound them. In a strong 7-judge dissent from denial of rehearingen banc, Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod wrote:"Power must be tempered by accountability. But this is not what our circuit’sinterpretation of Section 230 does. On the one hand, platforms have developedthe ability to monitor and control how all of us use the internet, exercising apower reminiscent of an Orwellian nightmare. On the other, they are shieldedas mere forums for information, which cannot themselves be held to accountfor any harms that result. This imbalance is in dire need of correction byreturning to the statutory text."Attorney General Fitch is joined on the brief by the Attorneys General ofAlabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana,Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota,Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Texas, and Utah and the Districtof Columbia.
Original source can be found here.