Exploitation of kids spurs bid to cut social media's shield

WASHINGTON • The teen was in high school when his secret spilled onto the Internet, driving him to consider suicide: Classmates were viewing sexual images of him and a friend on Twitter that child pornographers had duped him into sending.

The video clips remained visible for more than a week as the teen and his mother pleaded with Twitter to block the material, according to a lawsuit filed on the teen's behalf. The complaint alleges the company acted only after the images drew 167,000 views and leering comments from Twitter users, with some remarking on how young the pictured victims appeared to be.

Targets of online exploitation and harassment say they sometimes face indifference from platforms that operate under protection of a decades-old United States law that limits liability for content their users post online.

The law has drawn protests from Republicans and Democrats who allege that it has been used by the platforms to mishandle political speech.

Now, child advocates and families say the provision has permitted companies to dodge responsibility for online harassment and even sexual exploitation.

"Things like this happen all the time," said Fordham University law professor Olivier Sylvain.

The law, he said, "poses a real obstacle" for those pressing social media sites to remove material.

That has led privacy advocates, politicians and even parents of murdered children who have been trolled to urge Congress to restrict or do away with the legal shield, known by its chapter heading in the Communications Decency Act of 1996: Section 230.

The issue gained prominence during the 2020 elections when then President Donald Trump and other Republicans said, with scant evidence, that it let the websites suppress conservative speech - something the sites denied. Democrats, in turn, blame the provision for an unchecked flood of misinformation about candidates or Covid-19.

US President Joe Biden, while a candidate, called for repealing Section 230. More recently, his Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo spoke of revising the law.

The companies say they are doing what they can to take down offensive content, a task made difficult by the huge volume of posts. In the first half of last year, Twitter suspended 438,809 accounts for displaying material that sexually exploited children, according to a filing in the lawsuit brought on behalf of the teen who was harassed.

But, the company said, it is not possible to remove all offending content from the hundreds of millions of tweets daily from over 190 million users.

Still, Twitter asked the court to dismiss the youth's case, saying in the March 10 filing that "there is no legal basis for holding Twitter liable".

Under Section 230, "Internet platforms are immune from suit based on the failure to remove offensive third-party content", the company wrote.

The issue heated up when Twitter permanently banned Mr Trump for breaking its rules against glorifying violence after the Jan 6 assault on the US Capitol.

Less prominent in the debate have been private victims, such as the youth whose photos were still circulating even after his parents said they brought them to the attention of Twitter.

"It was deeply shocking and traumatising," said Mr Peter Gentala, an attorney for the National Centre on Sexual Exploitation. The non-profit group, along with two law firms and the teen's mother, filed the lawsuit on behalf of the youth, identified as John Doe in the filings.

"John Doe is in the difficult and sad position of looking for accountability because Twitter didn't follow its own policy, or even the law," Mr Gentala said. "When you hear the largest companies in the world say, 'We can't be held responsible for this', it's small wonder you see consensus building among lawmakers" to consider changes.

Twitter declined to comment on specifics of the lawsuit beyond its filings, and said in an e-mail that it has "zero tolerance for any material that features or promotes child sexual exploitation".

"We aggressively fight online child sexual abuse and have heavily invested in technology and tools to enforce our policy," the company said in the statement. Twitter says it uses "internal proprietary tools" to identify child sexual exploitation that have been used to close thousands of accounts.

Twitter also offers an online form for reporting online child sexual material, and says that in most cases consequences for violating its ban on such material are immediate and permanent suspension.

The company says it reports offensive posts to the National Centre for Missing & Exploited Children, a private non-profit group that works to help find missing children and reduce child sexual exploitation.

Similarly, Facebook says it uses technology to find child exploitative content and detect possible inappropriate interactions with children.

"In addition to zero-tolerance policies and cutting-edge safety technology, we make it easy for people to report potential harms, and we use technology to prioritise and to swiftly respond to these reports," Facebook said on a Web page describing its policies.

In Congress, lawmakers have jousted over Section 230's effect on political speech. Now, there are nearly two dozen legislative proposals to reform Section 230, according to a count by policy group Public Knowledge. One Senate Bill aims to hold social media companies accountable for enabling cyber-stalking and targeted harassment.

"Section 230 has provided a 'Get Out of Jail Free' card to the largest platform companies even as their sites are used by scam artists, harassers and violent extremists to cause damage and injury," said Virginia Democratic Senator Mark Warner, a sponsor of the measure announced on Feb 5 called the Safe Tech Act.

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