A judge has dismissed a complaint from a parent and guardian of a girl, now 15, who was sexually assaulted when she was 12 years old after Snapchat recommended that she connect with convicted sex offenders.
According to the court filing, the abuse that the girl, C.O., experienced on Snapchat happened soon after she signed up for the app in 2019. Through its “Quick Add” feature, Snapchat “directed her” to connect with “a registered sex offender using the profile name JASONMORGAN5660.” After a little more than a week on the app, C.O. was bombarded with inappropriate images and subjected to sextortion and threats before the adult user pressured her to meet up, then raped her. Cops arrested the adult user the next day, resulting in his incarceration, but his Snapchat account remained active for three years despite reports of harassment, the complaint alleged.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
A judge has dismissed a complaint from a parent and guardian of a girl, now 15, who was sexually assaulted when she was 12 years old after Snapchat recommended that she connect with convicted sex offenders.
Cops arrested the adult user the next day, resulting in his incarceration, but his Snapchat account remained active for three years despite reports of harassment, the complaint alleged.
's family had “clearly alleged” that Snap had failed to design its recommendations systems to block young girls from receiving messages from sexual predators.
Internet law professor Eric Goldman wrote in his blog that Bellis’ “well-drafted and no-nonsense opinion” is “grounded” in precedent.
Pointing to an “extremely similar” 2008 case against MySpace—“which reached the same outcome that Section 230 applies to offline sexual abuse following online messaging”—Goldman suggested that “the law has been quite consistent for a long time.”
However, as this case was being decided, a seemingly conflicting ruling in a Los Angeles court found that “Section 230 didn’t protect Snapchat from liability for allegedly connecting teens with drug dealers,” MediaPost noted.
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