Section 230 Holds, for Now, as Judge Backs Salesforce in Lawsuit

In March, 50 women identified only by numbers and the name “Jane Doe” filed a lawsuit against the business software giant Salesforce, as AVN.com reported. The suit alleged that because Salesforce provided the software infrastructure for the now-shuttered site Backpage—which was seized last year by federal law enforcement as part of an investigation into sex trafficking on the site—the company should be liable for their victimization by sex traffickers using the site. The lawsuit hinged on the FOSTA/SESTA law, passed overwhelmingly on a bipartisan basis last year by Congress, which makes online platforms liable for the activities of third parties who use them. The law was significant rollback of the Communications Decency Act’s Section 230, a law considered to be the legal foundation of internet communications. The 50 anonymous women claim that under FOSTA/SESTA, Salesforce should also be liable for the crimes allegedly committed by sex traffickers using Backpage. But last Friday, a Superior Court judge in San Francisco disagreed, ruling that Section 230—which shields online service providers from legal responsibility for third-party activities—protects Salesforce from the “Jane Doe” claims, according to a report by Bloomberg News. Judge Ethan Schulman issued a preliminary ruling that would dismiss the lawsuit, because Section 230 protects Salesforce. But because the ruling was only a preliminary one, a new hearing will be held next Monday. At that hearing, lawyers for the women will petition the judge to reverse his ruling and allow the lawsuit to move forward.  Under Section 230, internet services are not considered “publishers” and therefore cannot be liable for content that appears on their platforms. Without Section 230, services such as Facebook, Twitter and other platforms would be forced to monitor every one of the millions of posts on their sites every day—a task that would make operating the sites effectively impossible. But a lawyer for the women said that the lawsuit does not claim that Salesforce is a publisher. “We are making allegations that they helped build Backpage,” attormey Annie McAdmas told Bloomberg. “We are saying that without Salesforce, Backpage wouldn’t have been able to operate.” Photo By nathanmac87 / Wikimedia Commons