On Friday, a federal appeals court in San Francisco breathed new life into a segment of a lawsuit that claimed Elon Musk’s X, previously known as Twitter, had become a refuge for child exploitation. Although the court recognized the platform’s broad immunity from claims associated with objectionable content, it commanded X to confront a specific allegation of negligence for its late reporting of a video featuring explicit images of two underage boys to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC).
This case emerged before Musk’s purchase of Twitter in 2022. Initially dismissed by a trial judge in December 2023, the appeal court’s decision to reinstate part of the case was rooted in X’s purported failure to promptly report the concerning content to authorities. The legal team for X did not immediately offer a response to the court’s ruling, and Musk himself was not named as a defendant in the suit.
The plaintiff, referred to as John Doe 1, recounted how he and a friend, John Doe 2, were enticed via Snapchat to share nude photos of themselves under the guise of interacting with a 16-year-old girl from their school. However, the Snapchat user turned out to be a trafficker of child abuse images, proceeding to blackmail the boys for more photos. A compilation of these images was later posted on Twitter, where the platform waited nine days before removing the content and reporting it to NCMEC, by which time it had amassed over 167,000 views.
Judge Danielle Forrest of the ninth US circuit court of appeals stated that Section 230 of the federal Communications Decency Act, which typically shields online platforms from being held liable for user-generated content, does not protect X from the negligence claim once it became aware of the explicit images.
“Section 230’s immunity does not extend to X’s failure to report the images after obtaining actual knowledge of them,” Judge Forrest remarked, emphasizing that the statutory requirement to report “actual knowledge” of child pornography to NCMEC creates a separate obligation for X, distinct from its role as a content publisher.
The court also ruled that X must answer to claims that its reporting infrastructure was so complicated it obstructed efforts to report child abuse images effectively. However, it shielded X from assertions that the company intentionally profited from sex trafficking or designed search features to amplify posts of child abuse images.
Dani Pinter, a lawyer from the National Center on Sexual Exploitation representing the plaintiffs, issued a statement: “We are eager to move forward with discovery and ultimately go to trial against X to secure justice and accountability in this matter.”
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/aug/01/elon-musk-x-judge-court-ruling
