Doe v. Myspace Inc.; News Corporation 528 F.3d 413
Facts -In order to join Myspace, potential members must be at least 14 years of age. Myspace users 14-15 are given private settings on their profiles so they can’t be searched. Julie Doe, age 13, lied about her age, represented that she was 18 years old, and created a profile on Myspace.com. This resulted in her profile becoming public. She was then contacted via Myspace.com by Pete Solis, age 19, and the two met. During this meeting, Solis sexually assaulted Julie Doe. Julie Doe’s mother brought suit against Myspace alleging that it failed to implement basic safety measures to prevent sexual predators from communicating with minors.
Procedure - Jane and Julie Doe, “the Doesâ€, brought claim against MySpace for gross negligence and negligence. The district court dismissed the claims, finding that they were barred by the communications Decency Act 47 USC 230 and common law.
Holding – The decision of the district court was affirmed and the claims of negligence and gross negligence were barred by the Communications decency act.
Reasoning - Congress provided broad immunity under the CDA to web-based service providers for all claims stemming from their publication of information created by third parties. The Does attempted to argue that Myspace was not a publisher and the immunity did not apply because Myspace failed to implement safety measures. However, the court stated that this was simply attempt to get around the immunity. A better argument would have been that MySpace was partly responsible for creating information between Julie and Solis, but this was not brought at the district court so the argument wasn’t made The court found that the claims of negligence were barred by 230(c)(1) of the CDA. Myspace was not a publisher and cannot be held partially responsible for the context of the information that was exchanged between Julie and Solis.
Facts -In order to join Myspace, potential members must be at least 14 years of age. Myspace users 14-15 are given private settings on their profiles so they can’t be searched. Julie Doe, age 13, lied about her age, represented that she was 18 years old, and created a profile on Myspace.com. This resulted in her profile becoming public. She was then contacted via Myspace.com by Pete Solis, age 19, and the two met. During this meeting, Solis sexually assaulted Julie Doe. Julie Doe’s mother brought suit against Myspace alleging that it failed to implement basic safety measures to prevent sexual predators from communicating with minors.
Procedure - Jane and Julie Doe, “the Doesâ€, brought claim against MySpace for gross negligence and negligence. The district court dismissed the claims, finding that they were barred by the communications Decency Act 47 USC 230 and common law.
Holding – The decision of the district court was affirmed and the claims of negligence and gross negligence were barred by the Communications decency act.
Reasoning - Congress provided broad immunity under the CDA to web-based service providers for all claims stemming from their publication of information created by third parties. The Does attempted to argue that Myspace was not a publisher and the immunity did not apply because Myspace failed to implement safety measures. However, the court stated that this was simply attempt to get around the immunity. A better argument would have been that MySpace was partly responsible for creating information between Julie and Solis, but this was not brought at the district court so the argument wasn’t made The court found that the claims of negligence were barred by 230(c)(1) of the CDA. Myspace was not a publisher and cannot be held partially responsible for the context of the information that was exchanged between Julie and Solis.