CDA §230 Blocks Claims That Site Benefits From Child Abuse

Thursday, August 13, 2026

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Ninth Circuit:

CDA §230 Blocks Claims That Site Benefits From Child Abuse

Opinion Says Online Pornography Peddler Is Immune From Liability as to California Woman’s Claims Asserting That Defendant Profited Off Videos Showing Her Being Sexually Abused as Child, Drawing Dissent

By Kimber Cooley, associate editor

A divided Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held yesterday that operators of a series of pornography-distribution websites are immune from liability under §230 of the Communications Decency Act as to a California woman’s claims that the defendants benefitted from child trafficking in violation of federal law by reaping advertising and profit-sharing revenue from videos uploaded by a third-party that depict her being sexually abused as a minor.

At issue is the interplay between §230, which provides that “[n]o provider…of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher…of any information provided by another information content provider,” and the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (“TVPRA”), which says at §1591 that whoever knowingly:

“(1) in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce,…recruits, entices, harbors, transports, provides, obtains, advertises, maintains, patronizes, or solicits by any means a person; or

“(2) benefits, financially…from participation in a venture which has engaged in an act described in violation of paragraph (1), knowing, or, except where the act…is advertising, in reckless disregard of the fact, that means of force, threats of force, fraud, coercion…will be used to cause the person to engage in a commercial sex act, or that the person has not attained the age of 18 years and will be caused to engage in a commercial sex act, shall be punished….”

The statutory scheme provides for criminal sanctions and creates a civil cause of action against a perpetrator.

Exception to Immunity

Yesterday’s memorandum opinion, signed by Circuit Judges Johnnie B. Rawlinson and Gabriel P. Sanchez, recognizes that the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (“FOSTA”) creates an exception to the §230 defense in the event that the defendant’s own conduct violates §1591.

However, the panel held that the plaintiff failed to adequately plead that the defendant had knowledge of her having been sex trafficked as a minor and failed to act, saying:

“[The plaintiff] does not allege that she alerted [the defendant] to the circumstances of sex trafficking until her attorney sent a cease and desist letter in 2020, upon which [the defendant] removed her videos. Therefore, [she] fails to adequately allege…knowledge of and participation in sex trafficking activities for the FOSTA exception to apply.”

As to allegations that the defendant is in a profit-sharing relationship with the “channel partner” that distributed the videos of her as a minor, the jurists opined:

“[The plaintiff] does not allege that this channel partner ‘recruit[ed], advertise[d], maintain[ed], patronize[d], or solicit[ed]’ her ‘to engage in a commercial sex act,’ as defined in the statute.”

Senior District Court Judge Sidney A. Fitzwater of the Northern District of Texas, sitting by designation, dissented, commenting:

“I would hold that [the plaintiff] has pleaded a plausible claim under the TVPRA and has satisfied the [FOSTA] exception to immunity under §230 of the Communications Decency Act. I would therefore conclude that Defendants-Appellees are not entitled to dismissal of [her] TVPRA claim under Rule 12(b)(6)….”

Putative Class Complaint

Seeking to assert claims under TVPRA, as well as other California and federal laws that target the distribution of child pornography, was a California woman identified only as “Jane Doe.” In March 2021, she filed a putative class action complaint against WebGroup Czech Republic and related parties, asserting that the Prague-based entities “have reached into California” to “solicit…business” through websites “that are accessed” in the state “on a regular basis.”

In her operative pleading, she alleged:

“The Defendants, on their websites and servers, created, organized, facilitated dissemination, and developed key words, tags and/or categories to optimize and monetize images and videos that depict…child pornography. Each of these images and videos, including those depicting the Plaintiff, is a crime scene the Defendants monetized.”

In February 2025, District Court Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss, with prejudice, based on §230. Judgment was entered against the plaintiff the following month.

Majority’s View

Rawlinson and Sanchez noted that “a plaintiff’s theory of liability treats a defendant as a publisher if the legal duty at issue” would obligate the defendant to monitor third-party posts. Applying the standard, they opined:

“Doe alleges that WebGroup indiscriminately ‘profits from images and videos of commercial sex acts’ posted on its websites by selling advertisements based on the number of views for each piece of content. She seeks injunctive relief ‘requiring the Defendants to identify and remove child pornography and implement corporate-wide policies and practices to prevent continued dissemination of child pornography or child sex trafficking.’ Thus, Doe’s theory of liability obligates WebGroup to monitor and remove third-party content, thereby treating WebGroup as a publisher.”

They acknowledged that the section does not apply if the defendant is the “information content provider” who materially contributed to the alleged illegality at stake and remarked:

“WebGroup’s sites offer neutral tools such as tags, keywords, search functions, recommendation algorithms, thumbnails, revenue-sharing schemes,…and anonymized communication. These tools do not contribute materially to the illegality of child sex abuse material or treat such content ‘differently than any other third-party created content, and thus are entitled to § 230 immunity.’ ”

Addressing the FOSTA exception, they noted that the carve-out only applies if a party shows that the defendant knowingly benefited from and assisted in the sex-trafficking activities, a standard they reasoned Doe had failed to meet. The judges wrote:

“Doe alleges that WebGroup maintains ‘profit sharing relationships [with] sex traffickers….’ But despite using the term ‘sex traffickers,’ Doe does not allege that this channel partner ‘recruit[ed], entice[d], harbor[ed], transport[ed], provide[d], obtain[ed], advertise[d], maintain[ed], patronize[d], or solicit[ed]’ her ‘to engage in a commercial sex act,’….Nor does Doe adequately plead WebGroup’s knowledge of her sex trafficking….”

Dissenting Opinion

Fitzwater said he “concur[s] in the memorandum’s affirmance of the district court’s dismissal…of Plaintiff-Appellant Jane Doe’s…claims under the federal child pornography statutes and California privacy law” but remarked:

“I respectfully dissent, however, from the majority’s affirmance of the dismissal of Doe’s claim under the [TVPRA].”

He recognized that “to survive WebGroup’s motion to dismiss, the [operative complaint] must plausibly plead both actual knowledge of the trafficking venture and ‘a causal relationship between affirmative conduct furthering the sex-trafficking venture and receipt of a benefit.’ ” Applying the standard, he said:

“The parties do not appear to dispute that Doe has sufficiently pleaded that WebGroup benefited from a sex trafficking venture….[T]he [pleading] alleges that ‘[v]ideos of adults engaging in sex acts with Jane Doe while she was a minor were uploaded and disseminated through websites owned, operated and/or controlled by’ WebGroup, and that ‘advertisements were placed on webpages containing [those videos]…[which] provided substantial data and advertising revenue’ for WebGroup.”

As to whether the defendant had actual knowledge, the judge rejected the majority’s view that the plaintiff had failed to meet the standard. He opined:

“The SAC alleges that WebGroup ‘reviewed, monitored, and approved incoming videos to determine whether the videos may be posted to channel accounts.’ This review process may itself support WebGroup’s knowledge of sex trafficking.”

Suspicious Tags

Noting that the operate complaint alleges that the defendant “generated, originated, created, or otherwise edited tags associated with videos loaded onto its websites,” including ones such as “jailbait,” “not 18,” “7th grader,” and “toddler,” he concluded that [t]hese allegations enable the court to draw the reasonable inference that WebGroup knew of [child pornography] on its platform through its own interactions with the videos.”

He continued:

“Perhaps most important, the SAC alleges that WebGroup was ‘put on notice many times that uploaders uploaded [child sexual abuse material]…to their websites through notifications from victims, law enforcement, and journalists[.]’… Doe…[alleged]…that WebGroup ‘[was] put on specific notice by Jane Doe that the content depicting her was [child pornography] yet they continued to monetize and profit from this content.’ ”

The jurist took issue with the majority’s assertion that she failed to allege that the “channel partner” caused her to engage in a commercial sex act, saying:

“[F]rom my perspective, it was the distribution of the videos that made the sex act ‘commercial’; without distribution, it was simply abuse….Regardless, it is WebGroup’s actions—not those of the channel partners—that should be the focus of the causation inquiry.”

The case is Doe v. Webgroup Czech Republic, 25-2424.