SAN FRANCISCO — The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit has upheld a lower court’s ruling that Section 230 protects WebGroup Czech Republic from liability in a case involving user-uploaded CSAM on its tube sites.
As XBIZ reported in 2024, the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE), a conservative anti-pornography organization, backed the case against EU-based WebGroup Czech Republic (WGCZ), parent company of XVideos, XNXX, BangBros and GirlsGoneWild. NCOSE’s chief legal officer, Dani Pinter, served as one of the Jane Doe plaintiff’s attorneys.
Videos of the plaintiff when she was a minor were uploaded onto WGCZ’s platforms by a third party. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act protects interactive computer services, including adult platforms, from liability for user-uploaded content. However, the lawsuit invoked the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA) exception to Section 230, which revokes liability protections for sites that “unlawfully promote and facilitate” prostitution or sex trafficking.
In 2025, the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California ruled against the plaintiff, who then appealed the case to the 9th Circuit.
The 9th Circuit ruling explains that for the plaintiff to invoke the FOSTA exception, WCGZ must have knowingly benefited from and facilitated sex trafficking activities, which would require “actual knowledge and a causal relationship between affirmative conduct furthering the sex-trafficking venture and receipt of a benefit.”
The ruling notes that although the plaintiff used the term “sex traffickers,” she did not allege that the person who uploaded the illegal videos actually trafficked her under the statutory definition of the crime. Nor did she adequately demonstrate that WGCZ knew about such sex trafficking.
“Doe alleges that she ‘reached out to XVideos and XNXX multiple times over the years, beginning in at least 2017, requesting her abuse videos be removed,’” the ruling reads. “But she does not allege that she alerted WebGroup to the circumstances of sex trafficking until her attorney sent a cease and desist letter in 2020, upon which WebGroup removed her videos.”
“Doe fails to adequately allege WebGroup’s knowledge of and participation in sex trafficking activities for the FOSTA exception to apply,” the ruling concludes, affirming the lower court’s judgment and leaving Section 230 protections in the case intact.
