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An appeals court revived a lawsuit against the anonymous messaging service Yolo, which allegedly broke a promise to unmask bullies on the app. In a ruling issued Thursday<\/a>, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals said Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act shouldn\u2019t block a claim that Yolo misrepresented its terms of service, overruling a lower court decision. But it determined the app can\u2019t be held liable for alleged design defects that allowed harassment, letting a different part of that earlier ruling stand.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Yolo was a Snapchat-integrated app that let users send anonymous messages, but in 2021, it was hit with a lawsuit<\/a> after a teenage user died by suicide. The boy, Carson Bride, had received harassing and sexually explicit messages from anonymized users that \u2014 he believed \u2014 he likely knew. Bride and his family attempted to contact Yolo for help, but Yolo allegedly never answered, and in some cases, emails to the company simply bounced. Snap banned Yolo and another app<\/a> targeted in the lawsuit, and a year later, it banned<\/a> all anonymous messaging integration.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n There was \u201cno way\u201d Yolo\u2019s ten-person staff could police the app, say families<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Bride\u2019s family and a collection of other aggrieved parents argued that Yolo broke a legally binding promise to its users. They pointed to a notification where Yolo claimed people would be banned for inappropriate use and deanonymized if they sent \u201charassing messages\u201d to others. But as the ruling summarizes, the plaintiffs argued that \u201cwith a staff of no more than ten people, there was no way Yolo could monitor the traffic of ten million active daily users to make good on its promise, and it in fact never did.\u201d Additionally, they claimed Yolo should have known its anonymous design facilitated harassment, making it defective and dangerous.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n A lower court threw out both of these claims, saying that under Section 230, Yolo couldn\u2019t be held responsible for its users\u2019 posts. The appeals court was more sympathetic. It accepted the argument that families were instead holding Yolo responsible for promising users something it couldn\u2019t deliver. \u201cYolo repeatedly informed users that it would unmask and ban users who violated the terms of service. Yet it never did so, and may have never intended to,\u201d writes Judge Eugene Siler, Jr. \u201cWhile yes, online content is involved in these facts, and content moderation is one possible solution for Yolo to fulfill its promise, the underlying duty … is the promise itself.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cToday\u2019s decision does not expand liability for internet companies or make all violations of their own terms of service into actionable claims\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The Yolo suit built on a previous Ninth Circuit ruling that let another Snap-related lawsuit circumvent Section 230\u2019s shield. In 2021, it found Snap could be sued<\/a> for a \u201cspeed filter\u201d that could implicitly encourage users to drive recklessly, even if users were responsible for making posts with that filter. (The overall case is still ongoing<\/a>.) On top of their misrepresentation claim, the plaintiffs argued Yolo\u2019s anonymous messaging capability was similarly risky, an argument the Ninth Circuit didn\u2019t buy \u2014 \u201cwe refuse to endorse a theory that would classify anonymity as a per se inherently unreasonable risk,\u201d Siler wrote.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n This recent ruling is part of an extended push-and-pull over Section 230\u2019s scope. Several cases have sought to claim that apps are illegally defective if they lead to harassment or other harms, even if those harms were committed by users. Despite periodic victories<\/a>, it\u2019s still far from an established doctrine, and the Supreme Court declined to consider it for the Herrick v. Grindr<\/em> case<\/a> back in 2019. The Supreme Court also declined to pare down Section 230<\/a> in a case over whether YouTube and Twitter supported illegal terrorism. After this Ninth Circuit ruling, Yolo can still mount a defense that it reasonably attempted to enforce its user agreement, and the case isn\u2019t over.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Even so, letting users sue a company for not upholding its content policy could theoretically\u00a0allow lawsuits against nearly any service that doesn\u2019t practice (often impossibly)<\/a> perfect moderation. The Ninth Circuit insists that\u2019s not what it\u2019s doing. \u201cToday\u2019s decision does not expand liability for internet companies or make all violations of their own terms of service into actionable claims,\u201d Siler writes. \u201cIn our caution to ensure [Section] 230 is given its fullest effect, we must resist the corollary urge to extend immunity beyond the parameters established by Congress and thereby create a free-wheeling immunity for tech companies.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n