Supreme Court rejects calls to hold Reddit liable for child porn, protects tech immunity

• The US Supreme Court declined to hear a case involving a lawsuit accusing Reddit of violating federal law by failing to remove child pornography content from its website.
• The court dismissed the proposed class action lawsuit on the grounds that Reddit was shielded by a US statute called Section 230, which safeguards internet companies from lawsuits for content posted by users but has an exception for claims involving child sex trafficking.
• The case explored the scope of a 2018 amendment to Section 230 called the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA), which allows lawsuits against internet companies if the underlying claim involves child sex trafficking.
• The San Francisco-based 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals concluded that in order for the exception under FOSTA to apply, plaintiffs must show that an internet company "knowingly benefited" from the sex trafficking through its own conduct.
• Calls have come from across the ideological and political spectrum for a rethink of Section 230 to ensure that companies can be held accountable for content on their platforms.

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