Musk's X must face part of lawsuit over child pornography video
Warning: The following story contains graphic details.
A federal appeals court on Friday revived part of a lawsuit accusing Elon Musk's X of becoming a haven for child exploitation, though the court said the platform deserves broad immunity from claims over objectionable content.
While rejecting some claims, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said X, formerly Twitter, must face a claim it was negligent by failing to promptly report a video containing explicit images of two underage boys to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC).
The case predated Musk's 2022 purchase of Twitter. A trial judge had dismissed the case in December 2023. X's lawyers did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Musk was not a defendant.
One plaintiff, John Doe 1, said he was 13 when he and a friend, John Doe 2, were lured on SnapChat into providing nude photos of themselves to someone John Doe 1 thought was a 16-year-old girl at his school.
The SnapChat user was actually a child pornography trafficker who blackmailed the plaintiffs into providing additional explicit photos. Those images were later compiled into a video that was posted on Twitter.
According to court papers, Twitter took nine days after learning about the content to take it down and report it to NCMEC, following more than 167,000 views, court papers showed.
Circuit Judge Danielle Forrest said section 230 of the federal Communications Decency Act, which protects online platforms from liability over user content, didn't shield X from the negligence claim once it learned about the pornography.
'The facts alleged here, coupled with the statutory 'actual knowledge' requirement, separates the duty to report child pornography to NCMEC from Twitter's role as a publisher,' she wrote for a three-judge panel.
X must also face a claim its infrastructure made it too difficult to report child pornography.
It was found immune from claims it knowingly benefited from sex trafficking, and created search features that 'amplify' child pornography posts.
Dani Pinter, a lawyer at the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, which represented the plaintiffs, said in a statement: 'We look forward to discovery and ultimately trial against X to get justice and accountability.'
The case is Doe 1 et al v Twitter Inc et al, 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 24-177.
Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Cynthia Osterman.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CTV News
5 hours ago
- CTV News
U.S. Senate confirms former Fox News host Pirro as D.C. top federal prosecutor
Interim U.S. Attorney General for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro, listening to President Donald Trump speaks, during her swearing in ceremony, Wednesday, May 28, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate has confirmed former Fox News host Jeanine Pirro as the top federal prosecutor for the nation's capital, filling the post after President Donald Trump withdrew his controversial first pick, conservative activist Ed Martin Jr. Pirro, a former county prosecutor and elected judge, was confirmed 50-45. Before becoming the acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia in May, she co-hosted the Fox News show 'The Five' on weekday evenings, where she frequently interviewed Trump. Trump yanked Martin's nomination after a key Republican senator said he could not support him due to Martin's outspoken support for rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Martin now serves as the Justice Department's pardon attorney. In 2021, voting technology company Smartmatic USA sued Fox News, Pirro and others for spreading false claims that the company helped 'steal' the 2020 presidential election from Trump. The company's libel suit, filed in a New York state court, sought $2.7 billion from the defendants. Last month, Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee voted unanimously to send Pirro's nomination to the Senate floor after Democrats walked out to protest Emil Bove's nomination to become a federal appeals court judge. Pirro, a 1975 graduate of Albany Law School, has significantly more courtroom experience than Martin, who had never served as a prosecutor or tried a case before taking office in January. She was elected as a judge in New York's Westchester County Court in 1990 before serving three terms as the county's elected district attorney. In the final minutes of his first term as president, Trump issued a pardon to Pirro's ex-husband, Albert Pirro, who was convicted in 2000 on conspiracy and tax evasion charges. Michael Kunzelman, The Associated Press
CBC
5 hours ago
- CBC
U.S. watchdog launches investigation into former Trump prosecutor Jack Smith
A U.S. federal agency has opened a formal investigation into former special counsel Jack Smith, who oversaw two criminal probes into U.S. President Donald Trump following his first term in the White House. The Office of Special Counsel (OSC) confirmed to Reuters that it was investigating whether Smith violated the Hatch Act, a law prohibiting federal employees from using their position for political activity. The decision follows a request for a probe by U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton, an Arkansas Republican. The OSC is an independent agency that probes the conduct of federal employees, but it does not have the authority to bring criminal charges. It is different from the type of Special Counsel's office previously overseen by Smith, who was appointed by the Department of Justice to pursue criminal cases. The office's investigation, which was first reported by the New York Post, is the latest in a series of actions taken by Trump and his allies against their perceived political enemies. Smith, who resigned from his post in January following Trump's election victory, could not immediately be reached for comment. Earlier this week Cotton accused Smith of aggressively pursuing his cases against Trump with the aim of hurting his presidential campaign, calling Smith "a political actor masquerading as a public official," in a series of posts on social media platform X. "That's why I've asked this unprecedented interference in the 2024 election be immediately investigated by OSC," Cotton wrote. A former war crimes prosecutor, Smith brought two criminal cases against Trump — one accusing him of illegally retaining classified material and another related to Trump's attempts to overturn his 2020 election loss, an effort that sparked the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol. Neither case went to trial, having been delayed and buffeted by a series of legal challenges, including a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court's conservative majority that granted former presidents broad immunity from criminal prosecution. Smith dropped both cases after Trump won last November's election, citing a long-standing Justice Department policy against prosecuting a sitting president, but he issued a report in January saying the evidence he gathered would have been enough to convict Trump at trial. Trump denied wrongdoing and assailed the prosecutions as politically motivated attempts to damage his campaign.
Globe and Mail
6 hours ago
- Globe and Mail
If You'd Invested $1,000 in Solana 5 Years Ago, Here's How Much You'd Have Today
Key Points Solana runs on a proof-of-stake network that is one of the fastest in the crypto world. The network is already processing thousands of transactions per second. The technical strength of the network has made it a home run for investors. 10 stocks we like better than Solana › Only launched about 5.5 years ago, Solana (CRYPTO: SOL) is now the sixth-largest cryptocurrency in the world with a market cap of over $96 billion as of July 30. Many investors see immense potential in Solana's network. It's one of the few cryptocurrencies to operate on a proof-of-stake (PoS) mechanism to govern the network. After realizing how energy-intensive the traditional crypto-mining, proof-of-work (PoW) system had become on Bitcoin, the world's largest cryptocurrency, several crypto networks transitioned to PoS. Instead of using high computing power to solve a puzzle like with PoW, PoS has investors stake their tokens to the network, and then assigns them at random to validate transactions and mint new tokens. The more tokens one stakes, the higher the chance they have of being selected and also earning rewards. Even more unique, Solana's network also has a proof-of-history mechanism that essentially creates a sequential record of transactions, enabling even faster transactions on the network. As a result, Solana's network can process thousands of transactions per second (TPS), but it has the theoretical potential to process up to 65,000 TPS, if not more. This gives Solana and its network immense potential to disrupt the global payments system. Investors have done well While volatile like most cryptocurrencies, Solana has been a huge winner for investors that bought the token five years ago. The technical strength of its network has made Solana one of the few altcoins that investors see a strong use case for. Roughly five years ago, Solana traded for just $1.73. Today, it trades for over $179. That's a gain of roughly 10,264%. So, if you invested $1,000 in Solana five years ago, you now have $103,636! That's simply incredible. Investors aren't likely to find too many investments like that in their lifetime. Should you invest $1,000 in Solana right now? Before you buy stock in Solana, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Solana wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $624,823!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $1,064,820!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 1,019% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 178% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join Stock Advisor. See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of July 29, 2025
