The Supreme Court will almost undoubtedly recast or cut back the broad immunity that interactive online platforms enjoy via the Communications Decency Act's Section 230 liability shield, but the dearth of high court precedent on Section 230 makes it unclear how the justices will change that legal status quo, legal experts told us. The court granted cert last week to two related cases on social media platforms' legal protection when they are used in conjunction with terror attacks (see 2210030036).
Section 230
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A lawsuit accusing Twitter of sex trafficking should be dismissed because the plaintiffs failed to show the company knowingly benefited from criminal sex trafficking under a 2018 law, the platform argued Friday before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals (docket 3:21-cv-00485). The Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act, a 2018 carve-out of Communications Decency Act Section 230, applies “only where a civil defendant meets the criteria for criminal sex trafficking, which Plaintiffs fail to allege against Twitter in multiple respects,” the company said in its third brief on cross-appeal for review. Two minors in the case have sought to remove videos of them having sex from Twitter. The U.S. District Court in San Francisco said the plaintiffs had an avenue of relief under the 2018 law, allowing them to move forward with trafficking claims but rejecting claims based on distribution of child pornography. Congress made a “deliberate choice” to pass FOSTA with a limited carve-out, holding platforms liable only when they knowingly engage in "criminal" sex trafficking, and this lawsuit doesn’t meet that standard, the company said.