SCOTUS Refuses to Take up Case Asking Whether X Can Be Sued Over Child Exploitation Videos
The case, Doe v. X Corp., involved minors whose sexually explicit videos were uploaded to social media platform X (formerly Twitter). According to the lawsuit, the victims and their families reported the videos to the platform, but the content allegedly remained online for days before eventually being removed. The plaintiffs argued that X should be held liable because it knowingly allowed child sexual abuse material to remain on its platform and allegedly benefited from user engagement tied to the content.
The central legal issue was Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, the law that generally shields internet platforms from liability for content posted by users. The plaintiffs argued that Section 230 should not protect platforms when they knowingly host or distribute child sexual abuse material or benefit from sex trafficking activity.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled mostly in favor of X, holding that Section 230 barred most of the claims because decisions about whether and when to remove third-party content are considered “publishing activities” protected under the law. The court also held that merely failing to remove illegal content quickly enough was not enough to show the platform itself violated federal trafficking laws.
The plaintiffs then asked the Supreme Court of the United States to hear the case, arguing that tech companies should not receive immunity when they knowingly allow child exploitation material to remain online. Yesterday, however, the Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal, leaving the Ninth Circuit’s ruling in place.
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Another tale of the haves and have nots. You can bet your strudel that if one of the victims were a Supreme Court Justice’s child heads would roll!
Would be a interesting argument. Say John has some stuff on his computer. It is simple to remote into someones computer( harder without permission, but no impossible) So John are now an internet Host , just like X (but on much smaller scale). So what is the difference between Johns computer and X’s. If X can keep for a period of time why cant John. Twitter did not start out as a massive company, it started as very small like John. Would be funny to argue.
Musk gets special privileges. A small startup won’t unless it is backed by big money connected to our current corrupt administration.
The common man would lose their business at best and be sent to prison for life at worst.
The administration was not a party to this case.
Funny how X / Twitter and other social media can remove a comment within moments of it going up but not CSAM. You have countries that control what goes out over their internet. In the UAE they have arrested people for posting images from damage from the war and have strict restrictions as do other countries. Yet we can not get CSAM off the internet. Absurd and on purpose.
I don’t see how a platform as large as Twitter/X can be expected to moderate the ocean of posts it gets by the nanosecond.
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Isn’t that what AI is for? Why not have a delay for posts, just a few seconds is all it would take for AI. All the tech companies promote AI so now is the time to make it work. The other issue was that they were notified and still left it up.
These companies seem to have no problem taking down political speech they don’t like.
The law only applies to those who have not the power nor money to override it. It applies only to normal, average, everyday citizens without any close connections to power. We see it everywhere we look. The system exists above the law, and the system is owned by the wealthy and connected powerful few.
end users who might innocently come across CSAM images or videos can be investigated and prosecuted for possession and/or receipt of the material because the feds can track the IP addresses and cell phone information from any account that might step on that third rail, even when accidentally. I know this from personal experience.
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