PASADENA — A three-judge Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals panel has upheld a district court’s dismissal of a civil lawsuit attempting to circumvent Section 230 and hold Reddit liable for third-party content under a federal civil sex trafficking statute.
The judges held that Section 230 shields Reddit from a civil suit filed by attorneys for anonymous plaintiffs who allege that Reddit users “posted and circulated sexually explicit images and videos of minors online.”
The victims and their parents attempted to bypass Section 230 protections by appealing to the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act.
The Ninth Circuit panel held that, as an “interactive computer services provider,” Reddit “generally enjoys immunity from liability for user-posted content under Section 230.”
The plaintiffs also invoked the controversial FOSTA carve-out, claiming that Section 230 immunity “does not apply to child sex trafficking claims if the conduct underlying the claim also violates” the criminal child sex trafficking statute.
The judges, however, concluded that since the plaintiffs did not allege that Reddit “knowingly participated in or benefited from a sex trafficking venture,” they therefore “failed to state a sex trafficking claim.”
Ninth Circuit 'Reached the Correct Result'
Noted industry attorney and First Amendment expert Lawrence Walters of Walters Law Group told XBIZ, “While the wording of FOSTA’s intent provisions remain vague, this court reached the correct result by limiting any civil sex trafficking beneficiary liability claims to criminal conduct by the website operator itself, instead of focusing on the activities of its users."
Walters noted that "any contrary holding would leave website operators and online service providers in the impossible position of trying to discern the circumstances in which they should have known of alleged trafficking activities by third parties in order to avoid civil liability."
The Ninth Circuit’s ruling, he concluded, “resolves a critical split of authority in district court decisions which attempted to interpret a poorly drafted law that upset the internet ecosystem and resulted in widespread censorship of protected speech.”
An NCOSE-Promoted Attempt to Shut Down All UGC Content
The original lawsuit, which cited FOSTA-SESTA and was filed in April 2021 by attorneys for pseudonymous Jane and John Does, was originally dismissed a year ago.
At that time, U.S. District Judge James V. Selna found that Section 230 shielded Reddit from allegations of “profiting off of child pornography” over user-generated content (UGC).
In late November 2021, the lawsuit was revived through an appeal to the Ninth Circuit.
As XBIZ reported in March of this year, attorneys for the Jane and John Does filed an opening appellate brief for a proposed class of plaintiffs.
The initial 2021 lawsuit followed years of Reddit being targeted by religiously motivated anti-porn organization NCOSE for allowing any UGC involving sex, regardless of legality.
Reddit became the latest defendant in an orchestrated campaign of civil lawsuits attempting to challenge Section 230 protections in the name of protecting victims of sex trafficking.
Like similar lawsuits filed against Facebook, Twitter, Pornhub and WGCZ under NCOSE’s sponsorship, the Reddit lawsuit refers to an illegal video shot and uploaded by a third party. In each case, the third party is not part of the lawsuit. Instead, the plaintiff looks for a settlement from a large online platform that supposedly “promoted and monetized” the content.
Shortly before the original lawsuit was filed, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman stated during an interview with newsmagazine Axios HBO that his platform is “perfectly supportive” of pornographic content, as long as it does not feature involuntary sexualization or sexualization of minors.