Sex Abuse Victims Try to Separate Twitter Case From Reddit Decision

Twitter had more direct knowledge of child sex-abuse material (CSAM) on its platform than Reddit did in a similar case, attorneys for sex-trafficking victims told the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Friday in 22-15103 (see 2211100032). Twitter last week attempted to have the case thrown out, saying the 9th Circuit’s decision in favor of Reddit means the court should also rule in favor of Twitter. The Twitter case is different from Reddit's because unlike Reddit Twitter “confirmed and had direct knowledge that one of the victims” was a child, the plaintiffs said in their filing. And unlike Reddit, in which the alleged harm was “general,” plaintiffs in this case “directly allege that Twitter specifically benefited because of its refusal to remove CSAM depicting them,” the filing said. The allegations that Twitter “participated in a venture are more specific than the allegations in Reddit and therefore meet” a more “exacting” legal standard the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals established in 2016 in U.S. v. Afyare, the filing said: “The Reddit panel did not address facts where a platform knows the scope of user engagement with specific CSAM, and the corresponding increase in the benefit it receives.” The filing denied Twitter’s claim that the plaintiffs have conceded that their “beneficiary claim must be reversed.”