Good day all. Facebook and the other Big Tech companies have been coming under increasing fire from both sides of the political aisle. They’ve managed to piss off everyone. One of the things that they have used to cover themselves is Section 230 of the Telecommunications Act.
There is little question that Faceplant and Twitler have abused Section 230, and Congress is looking into how to correct this. Big Tech is trying to bribe their way out of it of course. However, there is a teensy weensy fly that has just nosedived into Facebook’s soup, the Texas Supreme Court. Here are the details from Fox Business:
The Texas Supreme Court ruled Friday that Facebook can be held liable if sex traffickers use the platform to prey on children.
The state court ruled that Facebook is not a “lawless no-man’s-land” and could be held accountable following three Texas-based lawsuits that involved teenage sex traffic victims, the Houston Chronicle first reported.
Hoping over to the Houston Chronicle story, it seems that several people have gone after Faceplant for basically aiding in sex trafficking.
The Texas Supreme Court ruled Friday in a Houston case that Facebook is not a “lawless no-man’s-land” and can be held liable for the conduct of pimps who use its technology to recruit and prey on children.
The ruling came in a trio of Houston civil actions involving teenage trafficking victims who met their abusive pimps through Facebook’s messaging functions. They sued the California-based social media juggernaut for negligence and product liability, saying that Facebook failed to warn about or attempt to prevent sex trafficking from taking place on its internet platforms.
Well, I don’t think that Mark Zuckerberg, or his management team are going to be to thrilled with that ruling. However, as the infomercials like to say, “But wait! There’s more!!”
The suits also alleged that Facebook benefited from the sexual exploitation of trafficking victims.
That one is going to hurt big time, and it makes me wonder if handcuffs could be in Zuckerberg’s future? Time will tell of course, but in the meantime, the civil suits are moving forward.
The justices said trafficking victims can move forward with lawsuits on the grounds that Facebook violated a provision of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code passed in 2009.
Facebook lawyers argued the company was shielded from liability under Section 230 of the federal Communications Decency Act, which states that what users say or write online is not akin to a publisher conveying the same message. Essentially, they said, Facebook is immune to these types of lawsuits.
Yeah, small problem with that, and it’s Faceplant’s habit of censoring or banning conservatives. Since they’ve been censoring content they don’t agree with, it opens them up to liability. Of course Faceplant doesn’t see it that way. Pity for them the court disagrees.
The majority wrote, “We do not understand Section 230 to ‘create a lawless no-man’s-land on the Internet’ in which states are powerless to impose liability on websites that knowingly or intentionally participate in the evil of online human trafficking.”
“Holding internet platforms accountable for the words or actions of their users is one thing, and the federal precedent uniformly dictates that Section 230 does not allow it,” the opinion said. “Holding internet platforms accountable for their own misdeeds is quite another thing. This is particularly the case for human trafficking.”
There are several women who were teens when the events took place. Basically it was a classic “Grooming” operation. However, one of the girls who was later rescued reported everything to Faceplant. It looks like they did nothing about it.
Another plaintiff was 14 in 2017 when a man contacted her on Instagram, another Facebook property. The pimp in this instance lured her with “false promises of love and a better future.” She said the easy access to her through social media made it possible for the man to traffic her, using Instagram to advertise her as a prostitute and set up “dates,” during which she was raped numerous times. After the teen was rescued from his operation, traffickers kept using her profile to lure in other minors, according to the ruling. In this case the family says the girl’s mother reported what had happened to Facebook and the company never responded.
This one is what makes me think that there are potential criminal charges that could be made against both Faceplant and Zuckerberg. Of course, I’m not a prosecutor and I don’t play one on TV. I also didn’t sleep in a Holiday Inn last night either.
Annie McAdams, a lead attorney for the plaintiffs, said it was a groundbreaking decision. This is the first case to beat Facebook on its argument that it had immunity under Section 230, she said.
“While we have a long road ahead, we are grateful that the Texas Supreme Court will allow these courageous trafficking survivors to have their day in court against Facebook,” McAdams said. She said with the help of an anti-trafficking provision under the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code called Chapter 98, “We believe trafficking survivors in Texas can expose and hold accountable businesses such as Facebook that benefit from these crimes of exploitation.”
The arrogance of Big Tech is massive. If they had even attempted to correct these issues, or contacted the victims, they might have some standing under Section 230. The fact that they ignored repeated reports of problems, on top of their blatant censorship of Conservatives and people posting information on the Covid-19 panicdemic that didn’t toe the party line, is going to sink them.
A Facebook spokesperson said in a statement that the company is considering possible next steps.
“Sex trafficking is abhorrent and not allowed on Facebook,” the official said. “We will continue our fight against the spread of this content and the predators who engage in it.”
Nice try, but this comes under the old saying, “The horse has left the barn, traveled to another county, hooked up with some mares, had a bunch of baby horses and retired to the old horses farm.” I have a sneaking suspicion that the lawyers at Faceplant know their proverbial goose is in the oven. If they try to settle with their usual Non-disclosure agreements, it’s likely that the plaintiffs might refuse and take it to trial.
If they settle without an NDA, then Faceplant will be admitting that section 230 doesn’t apply. If theyt go to court and win, it will be more ammunition for the parties in Congress to throw at them. If they lose, I won’t be a bit surprised if the next actions involve both an Anti-trust suit and a RICO charge. More popcorn anyone?
Thatisall
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~The Angry Webmaster~
