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(Jackson, Mississippi) 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 role in the sexual abuse he suffered at the hands of his teacher. In Doe v Snap, the social media platform has so far been able to use Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act to shield itself from any accountability.
The Attorneys General argue that Section 230 is being misinterpreted by lower courts and ask the Supreme Court to take the case and realign the law with its text and intended purposes.
“Over the years, the overbroad application of Section 230 has allowed the online world to become a safe haven for predators and a more dangerous place for children,” said Attorney General Lynn Fitch. “Court after court has permitted social media platforms to use it to escape any accountability for the harms they facilitate. Misinterpretation of Section 230 has enabled a parade of horrors, including the abuse the boy in this case suffered. We ask the Court to consider restoring balance to a law that has been led far afield from its text and one of its fundamental intended purposes – the protection of children.”
The Attorneys General note in their brief, “Plaintiffs have gone after platforms for their role in sex trafficking and abuse, the proliferation of child pornography, cyberbullying and harassment, terrorism, trafficking illegal drugs and guns, and more. Courts have mostly blocked such lawsuits under section 230 – largely at the pleadings stage, when a plaintiff’s allegations, in all their horror, are taken as true …. As companies have racked up victory after victory, year after year, they have become increasingly brazen in condoning and aiding dangerous and illegal conduct on their platforms.”
In the underlying case, a fifteen-year-old boy was groomed by his teacher using Snapchat, which automatically deletes messages. The teacher sent him explicit content to coerce him into a sexual relationship and drug use. The boy sued Snapchat, 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 of Appeals affirmed, both noting that precedents providing broad immunity under Section 230 bound them.
In a strong 7-judge dissent from denial of rehearing en banc, Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod wrote: “Power must be tempered by accountability. But this is not what our circuit’s interpretation of Section 230 does. On the one hand, platforms have developed the ability to monitor and control how all of us use the internet, exercising a power reminiscent of an Orwellian nightmare. On the other, they are shielded as mere forums for information, which cannot themselves be held to account for any harms that result. This imbalance is in dire need of correction by returning to the statutory text.”
Attorney General Fitch is joined on the brief by the Attorneys General of Alabama, 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 District of Columbia.
