From today's opinion by Justice Thomas, joined by Justice Gorsuch, dissenting from the denial of review in Doe v. Snapchat, L.L.C.:
When petitioner John Doe was 15 years old, his science teacher groomed him for a sexual relationship. The abuse was exposed after Doe overdosed on prescription drugs provided by the teacher. The teacher initially seduced Doe by sending him explicit content on Snapchat, a social-media platform built around the feature of ephemeral, self-deleting messages. Snapchat is popular among teenagers. And, because messages sent on the platform are self-deleting, it is popular among sexual predators as well.
Doe sued Snapchat for, among other things, negligent design under Texas law. He alleged that the platform's design encourages minors to lie about their age to access the platform, and enables adults to prey upon them through the self-deleting message feature. The courts below concluded that §230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 bars Doe's claims. The Court of Appeals denied rehearing en banc over the dissent of Judge Elrod, joined by six other judges..
The Court declines to grant Doe's petition for certiorari. In doing so, the Court chooses not to address whether social-media platforms—some of the largest and most powerful companies in the world—can be held responsible for their own misconduct. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act states that "[n]o provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider." In other words, a social-media platform is not legally responsible as a publisher or speaker for its users' content.
Notwithstanding the statute's narrow focus, lower courts have interpreted §230 to "confer sweeping immunity" for a platform's own actions. Malwarebytes, Inc. v. Enigma Software Group USA (2020) (statement of Thomas, J., respecting denial of certiorari). Courts have "extended §230 to protect companies from a broad array of traditional product-defect claims." Even when platforms have allegedly engaged in egregious, intentional acts—such as "deliberately structur[ing]" a website "to facilitate illegal human trafficking"—platforms have successfully wielded §230 as a shield against suit. See Doe v. Facebook (2022) (statement of Thomas, J., respecting denial of certiorari).
