![handle is hein.journals/comlaw32 and id is 1 raw text is:
COVER STORY
First Circuit Court of Appeals
Holds that Communications
Decency Act Bars Action
Claiming that Website Facilitated
Sex Trafficking ....................... 1
FTC Seeks to Sharpen Blurred
Lines with Guidance on Native
Advertising ................................... 4
In (Partial) Defense of Internet
Trolls: Advocating a Flexible
Summary Judgment Standard
before Unmasking Anonymous
Commentators Accused of
Defam ation................................... 9
Demystifying the Law on Opinion
and Embracing Milkovich ....... 15
Proportionality: Finally, A Tool to
Help Media Defendants Achieve
Rule 1's Promise........................ 24
The Continuing Relevance of
National Archives and Records
Administration v. Favish in an Era
of Violence ...................2........ 28
July 4, 1966: Birth of the FOIA -A
Look Back .................................. 34
Courtside .................................... 43
First Circuit Court of A ppeals
Holds that Communications
Decency Act Brs cto
C laiming that Website
Facilitated Sex Trafficking
ROBERT L. ROGERS III
n March the First Circuit Court
of Appeals issued an important
decision that upholds the robust
iunmunity afforded to website
operators under the Communications
Decency Act (CDA), through its affir-
matice of the dismissal of an action
by rape victims seeking damages
from Backpage.com under the federal
Trafficking Victims Protection Reau-
thorization Act (TVPRA). At a time
when even Backpage is contending
with different results involving simi-
lar claims in other courts.' the First
Circuit in Jane Doe No. I v. Backpage.
corn2 critically affirms that web-
sites cannot be liable for the tortious
conduct of their users, even if they
facilitate such conduct through their
user rules and even if the tortious
conduct is particularly deplorable.
Claims Asserted by Sex Trafficking
Victims Against Backpage.com
As the First Circuit noted, [t]
his is a hard case ... whose circum-
stances evoke outrage. Jane Doe No.
I involves disturbine claims about
online sex trafficking that led to
Robert L. Rogers, III is a Senior Counsel
with Holland & Knight LLP and works in
the flin's Orlando offie.
thousands of rapes of three teenage
women.4 The three plintiffs alleged
that sex trafficking pimps purchased
or forced them to purchase online ads
promoting them for escort services
from Backpage com, a website that
sells online classified advertising.
Based on these allegations, the
victims asserted a claim aaatist Back-
page under the civil remedy provision
of the IVPRA. which authorizes a
civil suit against anyone who know-
ingly benefits, fi nancially or by
receiving anything of value from par-
ticipation in a venture which that
person knew or should have known
was engaged in sex trafficking.6
The CDA generally immunizes
websites from liability for injuries
caused to their users by other users.
For example, the CDA inmunizes
websites from liability for defama-
tory statements posted by others by
prohibiting providers of interactive
computer services from being treated
as the publisher or speaker of any
information provided by another
information content provider. The
CDA further immunizes website oper-
ators from actions seeking to impose
liability for their exercise of a pub-
lisher's traditional editorial functions,
(Continued on page 37)
Published in Communications Lawyer, V!lume 32, Number 1, Winter 2016. @ 2016 by the American Bar Association. Reproduced with permission. Al! rights reserved.
This information or any portion thereof may not be copied or disseminated in any form or by any means or stored in an electronic database or retrieval system
without the express written consent of the American Bar Association.
Publication of the Forum
on Communications Law
American Bar Association
Volume 32, Number 1, Winter 2016](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/comlaw32&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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