Mom alerted to adult content on her teenage son’s Snapchat, so she sues

Snapchat spokesman: “We are sorry if people were offended.”

Cyrus Farivar – Jul 9, 2016 2:00 pm | 192

A concerned parent has sued mobile app Snapchat on behalf of her unnamed 14-year-old son, who was easily able to access adult-themed content on “Snapchat Discover.” This section of the mobile app is run by various media companies, including BuzzFeed.

In the Thursday lawsuit, the woman’s lawyer, Ben Mieselas, wrote that because Snapchat does not provide the adequate warnings it is required to do under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, it is liable to pay $50,000 per violation. That’s $50,000 every time a minor viewed such content.

In the 32-page civil complaint, Mieselas details how the boy, referred to as “John Doe,” came across numerous “Snapchat Discover” stories with titles like: “10 Things He Thinks When He Can’t Make You Orgasm” and “I Got High, Blown, and Robbed When I Was A Pizza Delivery Guy.”

Because the suit is a proposed class-action, Snapchat could be liable for millions of dollars if a judge certifies it and Snapchat loses.

Noah Edwardsen, a Snapchat spokesman, declined to respond to Ars’ direct questions.

“We haven’t been served with a complaint in this lawsuit, but we are sorry if people were offended,” he wrote in a statement. “Our Discover partners have editorial independence, which is something that we support.”

Section 230 strikes again!

While Snapchat has yet to formally respond in court, it is likely that it will claim immunity under the law.

As Ars has reported previously, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act states clearly:

No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of—

(A) any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected.

One of the primary benefits of this portion of the law, experts say, is that it has allowed many new websites and services to flourish without fear of being sued for libel or allegedly violating other laws. According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Section 230 has enabled all kinds of modern websites, including Craigslist, Yelp, and Facebook. In short, lawsuits should be brought against the relevant speakers or authors, rather than against the publishers.

However, the law also contains this section:

A provider of interactive computer service shall, at the time of entering an agreement with a customer for the provision of interactive computer service and in a manner deemed appropriate by the provider, notify such customer that parental control protections (such as computer hardware, software, or filtering services) are commercially available that may assist the customer in limiting access to material that is harmful to minors. Such notice shall identify, or provide the customer with access to information identifying, current providers of such protections.

Mieslas argues that Snapchat is specifically in violation of this law, among others. Among financial damages, he also wants Snapchat to provide some sort of warning and/or age verification mechanism that would mitigate viewing by under-18 users.

“We’re not anti-content, we’re not anti-freedom of the press, we’re not anti-humor,” he told Ars. “At the end of the day, let the parent make the decision.”

He also pointed out that unlike traditional Section 230 cases, Snapchat isn’t just a neutral platform.

“Snapchat has a very heavy hand in how the content is developed, chosen, [and] published, and Snapchat shares in the revenue,” he added.

Eric Goldman, a law professor at Santa Clara University who has studied and written about Section 230 extensively, called Mieslas’ arguments a “wild theory” that has not been litigated before.

“Overall, this lawsuit is like a 1990s throwback when Congress and the states tried to make websites screen minors from offensive content,” he e-mailed.

“We haven’t seen many such lawsuits since then because the First Amendment and Section 230 have wiped them out. Maybe these plaintiffs have found a way around that, in which case the lawyers will seem brilliant. If not, this will be just the latest failed crazy attempt to hold websites liable for third party content.”