John Doe, a 15-year-old boy from Canada, downloaded the Grindr dating application in 2019 and represented that he was over 18 to use it. The app matched him with four adult men, who subsequently raped him on consecutive days. Three of the men were later criminally sentenced, while the fourth remains at large. Doe filed a lawsuit against Grindr Inc. and Grindr LLC, alleging six causes of action: defective design, defective manufacturing, defective warning, negligence, negligent misrepresentation, and a federal claim for sex trafficking under the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act. The district court dismissed the entire complaint, ruling that Section 230 barred the state law claims and that Doe failed to state a valid federal sex trafficking claim. Doe appealed to the Ninth Circuit.
Judge Ikuta, writing for the panel, began by analyzing Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which provides immunity to interactive computer service providers from liability when plaintiffs seek to treat them as publishers of third-party content. The court applied the two-prong test from Barnes v. Yahoo! to determine if the claims implicated Grindr's role as a publisher. For the state law claims regarding defective design, manufacturing, and negligence, the court found that Doe's theory of liability faulted Grindr for facilitating communication among users for illegal activity. The court held that discharging the alleged duty to prevent matches between adults and minors would require Grindr to monitor and suppress third-party content, which necessarily treats Grindr as a publisher. Citing Dyroff v. Ultimate Software Group, the court noted that features designed to facilitate communication, even if they involve algorithms, are content-neutral and protected. The court rejected Doe's comparison to Lemmon v. Snap, distinguishing that case where the duty was independent of content moderation. Regarding the failure to warn claim, the court explained that Section 230 does not impose a duty to warn users of general possibilities of harm resulting from the app's publishing function, only when the provider has independent knowledge of a specific conspiracy. Similarly, the negligent misrepresentation claim failed because Grindr's general statement about creating a safe environment was a description of its moderation policy rather than a specific, enforceable promise unrelated to publishing. On the federal TVPRA claim, the court addressed the FOSTA exception to Section 230, which allows civil actions if the defendant knowingly engaged in or benefited from sex trafficking. The court held that Doe failed to plausibly allege that Grindr was a knowing perpetrator or beneficiary. The complaint alleged that Grindr matched users who claimed to be over 18 and that it advertised on social media, but these facts did not show active participation in sex trafficking. The court emphasized that turning a blind eye to potential trafficking is insufficient to establish liability; there must be actual knowledge and a causal relationship between affirmative conduct furthering the venture and the receipt of a benefit. Mere receipt of advertising revenue, without more, does not constitute knowing benefit.
The decision affirms the dismissal of Doe's lawsuit in its entirety, reinforcing the broad scope of Section 230 immunity for dating apps and similar platforms when sued for injuries caused by third-party users. It clarifies that general advertising revenue and the mere existence of a platform that facilitates communication do not constitute 'knowing benefit' under FOSTA unless there is active participation in the trafficking venture. The ruling leaves open the question of whether specific, non-publishing duties can be established against platforms, but currently, claims that rely on the platform's role in matching or communicating with third parties remain barred. The case is remanded to the district court with instructions to dismiss the complaint.
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