Thread by @cagoldberglaw

Good piece by @suehalpernVT in @NewYorker about 230.

I use some profanity to discuss @ grindrs response to Herrick's enormous efforts to get help. Over a thousand strangers came IN PERSON for sex. This was not a content-based suit 1/
newyorker.com/tech/annals-of… via @NewYorker

The issue was not the words in the profiles. It's that the profiles kept coming up, offender was using geolocation and chat to direct them to Grindr, and Grindr didn't have the technology or controls to stop that predictable problem. 2/

Lately Grindr has been responding to articles about Herrick and listing these magnificent efforts they were making to help. Well, it didn't ACTUALLY help. So who cares. But also, they didn't tell us that. And the strangers kept showing up. 3/

Section 230 eviscerates lawsuits at the motion to dismiss stage. So plaintiffs never get to know if their complaints were taken seriously.

These tech platforms aren't afraid of plaintiffs and litigation because of the damages.But because they're scared of discovery and 4/

want to keep their innerworkings (and LACK THEREOF) secret. Platforms benefit from everybody treating this as a speech issue b/c there are tons of folks aggressive about speech and censorship and gullible enough to think changing 230 will stop speech 5/

Section 230 did not create the modern internet. As @TorEkelandPLLC and I discussed today, the profit model did. The shift from subscription based internet to platforms getting money from ads and data mining 6/

is what created the internet. Think about it, Section 230 is a bar on litigation. and stops victims from accessing justice. If the threat of plaintiffs suing were so great that it would have stopped the development of the internet, then how have all the other 7/

industries grown up and thrived. Tort law isn't new. Suing isn't new. Good companies survive the threat of being sued by not engaging in practices that harm people.

For those of you who feel victims shouldn't be able to get justice against the platforms who harmed them,
8/

Please I ask one favor of you. Try to reverse roles. Try to imagine that child pornography of you at age 11 is being exchanged on Snapchat or that you receive 23 strangers at your home per day to have sex with you 9/

or that you were raped by somebody you met on a dating app who had raped other people on that app and that had been reported to that app.

What would you do? How would you handle it if, like Matthew, it took 10 months of working with prosecutors before an arrest was made? 10/

Would u really advise him to sue his offender? Would you want to be in court w/ somebody for 3+ years who wants you raped and killed and dealing w/ them in discovery and sharing your therapy records? KNowing theres' not a penny to their name & any time in court they could you?11/

How does suing judgment proof dangerous abusers deter platforms from hosting them? How does it not just amplify the trauma of the victim? Some victims want to get to the root of the problem and address the crisis on scale. That's what suing platforms does. 12/

One last thing. Always lovely to be quoted alongside my gals, @ma_franks and @daniellecitron