Julie Doe II, a Minor v. MySpace Inc.
California Court of Appeal
175 Cal. App. 4th 561 (2009)
- Written by Sharon Feldman, JD
Facts
MySpace.com was a social-networking website. Membership was open to users 14 or older, but younger users could enter a false birth date to gain access. Julie Does II, III, IV, and V (collectively, the Does) (plaintiffs) were females 13 to 15 years old. The Does created user profiles and were sexually assaulted by older men they met on MySpace. The Does sued MySpace Inc. (defendant) for negligence, alleging that MySpace knew its website posed a danger to children and failed to implement reasonable precautions to protect them. The Does’ complaints were dismissed based on § 230 of the Communications Decency Act (Section 230), which provided in part that an interactive-computer-service provider was not to be treated as the publisher or speaker of information provided by another information-content provider. The Does appealed, arguing that they were seeking to hold MySpace liable not for publishing content but for breaching its duty to provide reasonable safety measures.
Rule of Law
Issue
Holding and Reasoning (Bigelow, J.)
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