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A federal judge in Massachusetts dismissed a lawsuit brought against the classified ads website Backpage.com over posting ads for the sexual trafficking of minors. While acknowledging that criminals behind this ''abohorrent evil'' exploit the Internet as a marketing tool, the judge correctly concluded that Backpage.com couldn't be sued for running the ads, relying largely on Section 230 (47 U.S.C. § 230), the law that immunizes websites from liability based on user-generated content. EFF filed an amicus brief in the case on behalf of itself, the Center for Democracy & Technology, and Professor Eric Goldman, urging the court to broadly apply Section 230 as Congress intended.

The plaintiffs in the case of Doe No. 1 v. Backpage.com, LLC are young women who were allegedly sold for sex as minors via ads placed on Backpage.com. The plaintiffs brought various claims against Backpage.com even though it did not have a hand in creating or posting the ads. The ads were posted by traffickers or by the plaintiffs themselves at the direction of their traffickers.

Our amicus brief had focused on two exceptions to Section 230, the first for actions “enforcing” federal criminal law, and the second for intellectual property (IP) claims.

With respect to the federal criminal law exception, the court rejected the plaintiffs' argument that Section 230 did not apply to civil actions that are created by federal criminal laws (but still brought by private parties rather than prosecutors). The court here specifically explained that it found EFF persuasive in arguing that the chilling effect of extending this exception to private actions would be particularly serious because they would not be subject to the filter of prosecutorial discretion and the heightened standard of proof present in criminal prosecutions.