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This is another lawsuit against Grindr claiming that Grindr made it too easy for underage users to sign up and meet other users for sex. Thus, the plaintiff alleges “Grindr should have prevented C.D. from communicating with them by implementing stricter age-verification procedures.” The court completely dismisses the case per Section 230. To get around Section 230’s obvious application dating back to cases like Doe v. MySpace from 2008, the plaintiff made the now-standard modern argument that the Grindr’s lack of age authentication “is a design defect and Defendant Grindr had a duty to take steps to keep children from accessing this app” (citing Doe v. Internet Brands and Lemmon v. Snap). The court responds:
To be fair, other courts have rejected this “but for” causation analysis, though I think they are wrong. The plaintiff argued “Grindr could fulfill its alleged duty by changing its App features without involving third-party content.” The court says this is different from Lemmon because “the harm C.D. suffered did not flow solely from product software. Rather the harm suffered by C.D. is directly related to the geolocation and content provided by the users, which facilitates the match, direct messages, in-person meetings, and C.D.’s assault.” The court concludes:
I suspect this was the Kentucky circuit court judge’s first time hearing a Section 230 case, and he navigated Section 230’s complex doctrines and the plaintiff’s murky 230-workaround arguments thoughtfully and precisely. A commendation to Judge Jerry D. Crosby II. Case Citation: Doll v. Pelphrey, 2024 Ky. Cir. LEXIS 84 (Ky. Cir. Ct. Oct. 18, 2024). News coverage of the complaint filing. Prior Blog Posts About Grindr
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