A complaint accusing Reddit Inc. of breaching federal law by failing to remove child pornography from the discussion website was denied by the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday.
The justices rejected Reddit’s appeal of a lower court’s dismissal of the proposed class action lawsuit because Section 230, a U.S. statute that shields internet companies from lawsuits for user content, except for child sex trafficking claims.
On May 19, the Supreme Court declined to reduce Section 230 immunity in another instance.
Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 safeguards “interactive computer services” from being considered “publisher or speaker” of user-provided material. The Reddit case examined the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA), a 2018 update to Section 230 that authorizes litigation against internet firms for child sex trafficking.
Subreddits on Reddit allow users to filter material. Users posted child sexually explicit photographs and videos to such communities. In 2021, the parents of kids and a former juvenile in the photographs sued Reddit in California federal court for damages.
Reddit was accused of failing to delete child pornography and profiting from it through advertising, violating a federal child sex trafficking law.
In 2022, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled that FOSTA’s exception applies only if an online corporation “knowingly benefited” from sex trafficking.
The 9th Circuit found that Reddit “suggest only that Reddit ‘turned a blind eye’ to the unlawful content posted on its platform, not that it actively participated in sex trafficking.”
In court papers, Reddit stated it allows users to flag postings and uses specialized staff to delete illegal content to detect and prevent child sexual exploitation on its network.
On May 19, the Supreme Court rejected to weaken Section 230 in a lawsuit seeking to make Google LLC responsible under a federal anti-terrorism legislation for allegedly promoting Islamic State propaganda to YouTube subscribers. Alphabet Inc. owns Google and YouTube.
Democratic President Joe Biden and his Republican predecessor Donald Trump have called for a revision of Section 230 to hold firms accountable for platform content.
“Child pornography is the root cause of much of the sex trafficking that occurs in the world today, and it is primarily traded on the internet, through websites that claim immunity” under Section 230, the plaintiffs claimed in their Supreme Court appeal.
They stated that upholding the 9th Circuit’s ruling “would immunize a huge class of violators who play a role in the victimization of children.”
