The Texas Supreme Court ruled Friday that Facebook can be held liable if sex traffickers use the platform to prey on children.
The state court ruled that Facebook is not a "lawless no-man’s-land" and could be held accountable following three Texas-based lawsuits that involved teenage sex traffic victims, the Houston Chronicle first reported.
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The victims were reportedly preyed on through the social media platform’s messaging system – prompting prosecutors to claim the site was negligent in not better blocking sex trafficking opportunities.
Facebook contended that it is protected under Section 230 – an internet law that says online platforms are not responsible for third-party content posted on the service's site.
"Holding internet platforms accountable for words or actions of their users is one thing, and the federal precedent uniformly dictates that section 230 does not allow it," the court found, according to the Chronicle. "Holding internet platforms accountable for their own misdeeds is quite another thing. This is particularly the case for human trafficking."
Facebook told Fox Business they are considering "next steps" following the court's decision.
"We’re reviewing the decision and considering potential next steps. Sex trafficking is abhorrent and not allowed on Facebook," a spokesman said. "We will continue our fight against the spread of this content and the predators who engage in it."
During the Trump administration, the GOP started taking aim at Section 230, which it believes unfairly permits political dominance by Democrats on social media platforms, contributing to what has been dubbed "cancel culture."
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But Democrats on the Hill have recently shown a bipartisan interest to more heavily regulate social media companies and overhaul Section 230, following the attack on the U.S. Capitol in January.
Reforming Section 230 could mean that large companies like Facebook, Twitter and Google are held to more stringent standards regarding what is published on their platforms.
r3drocket on June 27th, 2021 at 17:06 UTC »
So FOSTA which passed a few years ago was the law that makes websites liable for sex trafficking the problem was that it was most likely to impact small internet sites and not big sites like Facebook.
In general this is a serious problem if you make a website liable for what it's user say, then only the largest websites will be able to defend themselves.
In some ways FOSTA was a win for Google Facebook and other large sites, because they have funds to defend themselves against such lawsuits where a small website operators will not.
It's important to understand that laws like FOSTA which reduced the protection provided by the CDA ultimately coalesce internet real estate in the company's large enough to defend themselves against lawsuits.
To be sure sex trafficking is bad, but the cure offered by FOSTA, needs to be considered in the overall light of what it does to freedom of speech online and how it reduces the diversity of online platforms. If small niche online platforms shut down because they cannot afford to defend themselves, putting more power in the hands of a company like Facebook, then we should ask what we've lost and gained.
It'll be interesting to see how Facebook deals with this but it probably won't matter since they seem to be untouchable anyways.
UnluckyDrink on June 27th, 2021 at 16:56 UTC »
Didn’t Craigslist stop the personal ads for exactly this reason ?
krum on June 27th, 2021 at 16:40 UTC »
I'm pretty sure there's a TON of sex trafficking going on on Instagram.