Court Rules Facebook Can Be Liable for Sex Trafficking on Its Platform: Section 230 Does Not ‘Create a Lawless No Man’s Land’

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The Texas Supreme Court ruled Friday that Facebook can be held liable for any sex trafficking on its platform, despite the protections of Section 230.

Facebook’s attorneys had initially argued that under Section 230 of the federal Communications Decency Act, the social media giant could not be held responsible for what a user said or wrote on its platform. However, the company acknowledged that “sex trafficking is abhorrent and not allowed,” and that they plan to “continue our fight against the spread of this content and the predators who engage in it.”

In the majority opinion, the justices wrote that Section 230 does not “create a lawless no-man’s-land on the internet” and that states should be able to hold platforms that knowingly engage in, or promote, sex trafficking.

“Holding internet platforms accountable for the words or actions of their users is one thing, and the federal precedent uniformly dictates that Section 230 does not allow it,” the opinion said. “Holding internet platforms accountable for their own misdeeds is quite another thing. This is particularly the case for human trafficking.”

According to the Houston Chronicle, the case originated from three Houston-based lawsuits brought by teenagers who met predators via Facebook’s messaging functions. The Chronicle reported that the three teens sued for negligence and product liability, and claimed that Facebook failed to warn about or try to prevent sex trafficking on its platforms.

Last year, the majority of online recruitment in U.S. sex trafficking took place on Facebook, according to a report from the Human Trafficking Institute.

“The internet has become the dominant tool that traffickers use to recruit victims, and they often recruit them on a number of very common social networking websites,” Human Trafficking Institute CEO Victor Boutros told CBS News in early June. “Facebook overwhelmingly is used by traffickers to recruit victims in active sex trafficking cases.”

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