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Case involves Section 230 of the Communications Decency

Act

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Trump has been a critic of Section 230 protections

By Jan Wolfe

WASHINGTON, Oct 14 (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court

declined a chance to reassess the broad legal immunity tech

companies have over content hosted on their platforms, turning

away on Tuesday an appeal in a lawsuit against Grindr ( GRND )

by a male plaintiff who was raped at age 15 by adult men matched

to him via the gay dating app.

The justices decided not to hear the plaintiff's appeal of a

lower court's ruling to dismiss his lawsuit seeking monetary

damages against Los Angeles-based Grindr ( GRND ) because the company was

protected from liability by a provision of federal law called

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.

Enacted in 1996, Section 230 allows online platforms,

including social media sites and online forums, to host

user-generated content without being held legally responsible as

the "publisher or speaker" of that content. The provision has

shielded online platforms such as TikTok and Meta Platforms ( META )

from a wide range of litigation.

The plaintiff in the Grindr ( GRND ) case has remained anonymous,

being referred to as "John Doe" in court filings. His lawyers

argued in a court filing that Section 230 has been a "goldmine

for amoral companies who need not invest in providing safe

products."

Lawyers for Doe said four adult men raped him on consecutive

days in April 2019, when he was a high school student in a small

town in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia after he signed up

for Grindr ( GRND ) and falsely represented he was at least 18 years old.

Grindr ( GRND ) requires users to be over 18, but does not verify the

ages of users.

Three of the men were prosecuted in Canada and received

multi-year prison terms, while the fourth remains at large,

according to court papers.

The plaintiff filed his civil lawsuit in California state

court in Los Angeles in 2023, accusing Grindr ( GRND ) of negligence and

unlawfully failing to warn users about the risks of child sexual

abuse, among other claims, as well as defective app design for

matching adults and children for illegal sexual activity. It

sought an unspecified amount of compensatory damages for

physical and emotional harm, plus punitive damages of at least

$66 million.

After the case was moved to federal court, the

California-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in

February that Section 230 barred Doe's state law claims.

His lawyers in asking the Supreme Court to hear the case

called it an optimal vehicle for addressing whether Section 230

"immunizes apps for their own conduct in marketing and designing

defective products."

Proponents of Section 230 have argued that, without it,

online services would face potentially crippling legal costs and

would be incentivized to censor free expression on the web.

Republican President Donald Trump has been a critic of

Section 230 and sought unsuccessfully during his first term in

office to end the protections.

The Supreme Court last addressed Section 230 in a set of

rulings from 2023. In those cases, the justices declined to chip

away at Section 230's scope and rejected lawsuits that sought to

hold tech giants including Alphabet Inc ( GOOG ) liable for

terrorism-promoting content on their platforms.

Online platforms have urged courts not to weaken Section

230's protections.