Texas says Facebook can be held liable for sex trafficking

 Karen Townsend:

The Texas Supreme Court ruled Friday that Facebook can be held liable for sex traffickers who use the social media platform to recruit and prey on children. The court ruled in favor of three Houston civil actions involving teenage sex trafficking victims. All three victims said they met their traffickers through Facebook’s messaging functions.

The women are now adults who say that they were recruited as teenagers through Facebook apps and trafficked for sex. They say that Facebook gave credibility to the traffickers and provided “a point of first contact between sex traffickers and these children” and “an unrestricted platform to stalk, exploit, recruit, groom, and extort children into the sex trade.” The young women sued Facebook for negligence and product liability. They claim that Facebook failed to warn them about sex trafficking or try to prevent it on their platform. They also claim that Facebook benefited from the sexual exploitation of the trafficking victims.

The Texas Supreme Court ruled that Facebook is not a “lawless no-man’s-land”. The justices ruled the lawsuits can go forward against Facebook for violating a provision of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code passed in 2009. Facebook lawyers argue that it is not liable. Facebook says it is shielded by Section 230 of the federal Communications Decency Act. Section 230 states that what users say and write online is not the same as the publisher sending the same message. Facebook claims immunity from these lawsuits. The Texas Supreme Court ruled against that claim of immunity.
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I am not a big fan of the Messenger App on Facebook.  I do occasionally use it as a text message to family members.  I am pretty sure I have never seen any sex trafficking on the app.  I do find it ironic that in defending the case the company which irrationally bans President Trump appears to be saying that sex trafficking does not breach their community standards.

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