Grindr The 9th Circuit Court of the United States The appeal was ruled this week; it was the latest teen-tech quarrel in a battle for Internet immunity experts, saying it will soon appear in the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Court of Appeals ruling upheld the 2023 ruling by Central California District Judge Otis D. Wright II, who dismissed the lawsuit, saying Grinder was covered up by extensive immunity protection, The plaintiff was nearly ten years before his birth.
A closed Nova Scotia teenager downloads amid a series of events called “Shocking and Tragic” LGBTQ+ hookup application Trying to meet other gay kids in rural Canada.
Instead, over four days he was attacked by four adult men, including a man who picked him up after the teenager gave him photos from the high school cafeteria.
Since then, three of them have been convicted. The fourth place is still very big.
The boy’s attorney later moved to federal court in his first civil lawsuit filed in the California Superior Court of Los Angeles. Doe vs. Grindr Despite the adult-only terms of service, Grindr knows that the kids use their app and even sell them on Tiktok and Instagram. About half Gay teenagers use Grindr Although still underage, 2018 Research In The Journal of Adolescent Health.
The lawsuit also called West Hollywood tech a “trafficking business.”
Wright and the 9th Tour team disagree, saying Grindr is exempted from the responsibility for rape under section 230 of the Model Communications Act of 1996.
“This is the moment when the 9th Circuit recognizes the recommendation of children’s products to adults,” said Carrie Goldberg, the boy’s attorney. “We have faith in the Supreme Court’s disgust with Section 230’s overreach , which will correct this disappointing result.”
Article 230 provides extensive immunity to the work users do there, indemnifying companies such as Google, Meta and Bytedance from most civil claims.
“Chapter 230 is indeed [free] The voice engine of the Internet – It allows the platform to enable everyone to say what they want to say without the need for a large-scale accountability review. “It is indeed free to express.”
But the law was linked to the phone line in 1996, and location-based social media sex apps were a craziest dream of science fiction.
Revisions made in the mobile era have fallen significantly in the U.S. Court of Appeal.
“The 9th Circuit has been the leader in interpreting Section 230,” Roon said.
Grinder’s attorney did not respond to a request for comment.
Whether the civil liberties expert is consistent with the 9th Circuit precedent. In 2021, the court ruled that Snap could face negligent claims of intra-filter application, which encouraged teenagers to speed up. In 2024, it discovers that third-party developers may be False statements After that, it failed to reveal the anonymous bullies.
Judge Sandra Ikuta wrote for the trio’s 9th Circuit panel, and these precedents do not apply to the Grindr case – some experts believe the decision could be a larger “En Banc ”The panel reverses, or may be revoked to the Supreme Court.
“[The decision] Megan Iorio, senior consultant at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said. “I don’t have enough information to speculate why [the appellate panel] Will ignore the precedent of the 9th Circuit, but they did. ”
Others disagree.
“I think that’s very consistent with its precedent,” Roon said.
The 9th Circuit currently applies three tests to one case to determine if Section 230 applies: Is the defendant an Internet platform? Does the lawsuit consider the platform as a publisher? Are behaviors that endanger third parties or are inherent in the platform itself?
“Five or six years ago, the plaintiff would file a lawsuit saying that this would hurt me,” said Sophia Cope, senior chief of staff of the Electronic Border Foundation’s civil liberties team. “They are such cookie cutters – you’re trying to hold the platform responsible.”
Instead, recent suits have attempted to identify design flaws, improper incentives and failure to warn apps to be held accountable for widespread harms from sexual trafficking to speeding deaths to teen suicides.
“They pose a responsibility for how the platform is designed,” Cope said. “They have been trying to reshape the platform’s capabilities that the platform is designed and implemented.”
Attorneys in Doe vs. Grindr believe the app itself is flawed, partly because it has no mechanism to verify that its users are adults.
Such tools exist and are used by diverse platforms such as ETSY and the California Department of Employment Development. But few social platforms or dating apps use them.
“If you want to filter out minor users, you have to verify the aging,” Cope said. “This means first amendment rights for adults who may not want to upload their driver’s license to the site, which are with homosexuality and double Sexual relationships are related.”
So far, the 9th Tour has been trending agree Have an electronic boundary basis and have Prevent Rules that require users to prove their age before opening a social media account.
Nevertheless, anger at the legal boundaries has been cut in the partisan boundaries and has caused new tests.
Mammoths representing American teenagers cross litigation against SNAP, META, BYTEDANCE and GOOGLE are currently in the Northern California area. Similar lawsuits are also moving forward in the Los Angeles Superior Court.
Experts say that even if Doe vs. Grindr ends on the 9th, the U.S. Supreme Court challenge to Section 230 seems inevitable.
Whether the Justice is eager to hear it is more debated.
“justice [Clarence] Thomas and other conservative justices have at least one or two who want to accept this again, but I’m not sure if there is a majority. ”
She said that when there was an opportunity to further restrict legal immunity from Internet platforms in 2023, “the court punctured.”
“The court is like, ‘We’re not touching it with a 10-foot pole.’
