Social networks like MySpace still cannot be held responsible for assaults that happen offline, according to California's Second District Court of Appeal in Los Angeles. The court was asked to review the case of four underage girls (referred to as Julie Does) who, along with their parents, had sued MySpace for gross negligence and strict product liability after they were all sexually assaulted by older men whom they met on the service.

Despite the scary circumstances in which these events took place, the judge said that MySpace was protected under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act and could not be held liable.

Who's responsible for safety?

Each of the Julie Does were between the ages of 13 and 15 at the time of their assaults. The girls all met their assaulters on MySpace—men who ranged in age from 18 to 25—despite MySpace's automatic settings that keep the profiles of anyone under 15 private by default.

Some of these assaults were truly terrifying—according to court documents, Julie Doe III was drugged and "brutally sexually assaulted," while Julie Doe IV was drugged by the guy she met plus one of his friends, who then "took turns sexually assaulting her." Some of the men in question have been handed prison sentences already, though others are still awaiting trial.

In each of the cases, the plaintiffs accused MySpace of making a conscious decision not to implement "reasonable, basic safety precautions with regard to protecting young children from sexual predators" despite being acutely aware of the dangers posed to minors. The Does did not succeed at pushing this argument at the trial court level, however, which ruled that MySpace was protected by Section 230 of the CDA. This is the same part of the law that has protected craigslist from being held responsible for discriminatory housing ads and SexSearch.com from being held responsible after a man was convicted for having sex with a minor he met on the site.

The Julie Does responded by amending their complaints in an attempt to get around the CDA. They said that their claims were not based on content posted by another member of the site (which is largely what the CDA covers), but rather "MySpace's failure to institute reasonable measures to prevent older users from directly searching out, finding, and or communicating with minors."

Essentially, they were trying to argue that MySpace was not responsible for the messages that went back and forth between the victims and their assaulters, but rather that the site was responsible for not doing more to prevent the assaulters from finding the girls in the first place.

However, the complaint still does not avoid the immunity granted by section 230. "[T]hey want MySpace to ensure that sexual predators do not gain access to (i.e., communicate with) minors on its Web site. That type of activity—to restrict or make available certain material—is expressly covered by section 230," wrote the appeals court.

Unsurprisingly, free speech advocates are applauding the decision. "The idea is, you hold the speaker responsible, not the soapbox," Electronic Frontier Foundation spokesperson Rebecca Jeschke told Reuters. "If you want any kind of social interaction on the Internet this is very important."

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