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Grindr, a dating app aimed at gay men, cannot be held responsible for raping a 15-year-old boy whose company matches a sexual predator. This is the latest teenage technology nausea in the fight that internet immunity experts could soon come to the US Supreme Court.
The Court of Appeals’ decision upheld a 2023 decision by U.S. District Judge Otis D. Wright II of the Central District of California.
A closet Nova Scotia teen downloaded the LGBTQ+ hookup app to meet other gay kids in rural Canadian towns in a series of events called “Allage and Tragic.”
Instead, over four days he was attacked by four adult men, including a man who picked him up after his teenager sent pictures from his high school cafeteria.
Three of those men have since been convicted of sexual offences. The fourth remains large.
In a civil suit that was first filed in California Superior Court in Los Angeles and later moved to federal court, the juvenile lawyer allegedly in DOE v. Grindr. On Tiktok and Instagram. According to a 2018 survey by the Journal of Adolescent Health, roughly half of gay teens use Grindr while still underage.
Suit calls high-tech companies in West Hollywood “trafficking ventures.”
Wright and the Ninth Circuit panel both opposed, saying they were protected from rape liability under Section 230 of the Communications Determination Act of 1996.
“This would have been the moment when the 9th Circuit realised that its products that recommend children to adults were defective,” said the boys’ lawyer Carrie Goldberg. “We believe that the Supreme Court, expressing disgust over Section 230, will amend this course on this disappointing outcome.”
Section 230 gives the Internet platform a broad immunity for what users do there and indemnifies companies such as Google, META, and bytedance from most civil claims.
“Section 230 is really [free] The Internet Speech Engine – Platform allows everyone to allow them to say what they want without a large-scale review of responsibility.” “It really allows for free expression.”
However, the law was linked to the phone line in 1996, and location-based social media sex apps were the heat dream of sci-fi.
Revising it for the mobile era has largely fallen to the national courts of appeals.
“The 9th Circuit was the leader in the interpretation of Section 230,” Luan said, often in support of the plaintiffs.
Grindr’s attorney did not respond to requests for comment.
Civil liberty experts split over whether the decision coincided with the 9th Circuit precedent. In 2021, the court ruled that Snap could face neglecting design claims surrounding in-app filters that encourage teens to speed up. In 2024, it was discovered that third-party developers could be liable for misrepresentation after failing to expel anonymous bully.
Judge Sandra Ikta wrote for the three-person Ninth Circuit Commission and said these precedents do not apply to the Grindle case. He said this was a decision that some experts thought could be reversed by a larger “en banc” panel or perhaps proceeded to the Supreme Court.
“[The decision] said Megan Iorio, senior advisor to the Center for Electronic Privacy Information. “There’s not enough information to guess why [the appellate panel] I ignore the precedents of the 9th Circuit, but they certainly did. ”
Others opposed.
“I think it’s very in line with that precedent,” Rune said.
The 9th Circuit is currently applying three tests to the case to determine whether Section 230 applies. Is the defendant an internet platform? Does this suit treat that platform as a publisher? And is the harm the act of a third party or is it inherent to the platform itself?
“Five or six years ago, the plaintiff will file a lawsuit that this content hurt me,” said Sophia Cope, a senior staff attorney for the Civil Liberties Team at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. “They were so cookie cutters. You’re trying to hold responsibility for that platform.”
Instead, more recent lawsuits have sought to identify design flaws, perverse incentives, and warnings to hold apps accountable for a wide range of harms ranging from sex trafficking to teenage suicide. .
“They fram it as a responsibility to how they design their platform,” Cope says. “They are trying to reconstruct their claims against the platform due to the features they have designed and implemented.”
The lawyers for DOE vs. Grindr argued that the app itself was flawed. This is because there is no mechanism to ensure that the user is an adult.
These tools exist and are used in a variety of platforms, including Etsy and the employment development sector in California. However, I rarely use social platforms or dating apps.
“If you want to exclude minor users, you inevitably need to validate everyone,” Cope says. “It involves first amendment rights for adults who may not want to upload driver licenses to this site related to gay and bisexual relationships.”
The 9th Circuit has so far tended to agree to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, blocking rules that require users to prove their age before opening social media accounts.
Still, anger over legal restrictions has been reduced across partisan boundaries, creating new tests.
On behalf of American teenagers, the Mammoth multi-district lawsuit against SNAP, META, Bytedance and Google is now passing through the Northern California district. A similar case is moving forward in Los Angeles Superior Court.
Even if DOE vs Grindr ends on the 9th, the new U.S. Supreme Court challenge to Section 230 appears inevitable, experts said.
Whether the judge wants to hear it is more debated.
“justice [Clarence] Thomas and at least one or two other conservative justice would like to take this back, but I don’t know if there’s a majority,” Cope said.
When the opportunity to further restrict internet platforms resulted in a legal immunity in 2023, “the court punted,” she said.
“The court said, ‘We didn’t touch this on a 10-foot pole,” Coop said.
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