United States of America: United States Court of Appeals for Ninth Circuit issued ruling in lawsuit against Twitter over alleged failure to remove child sexual abuse material

On 1 August 2025, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued a ruling in Doe 1 v. Twitter, Inc., affecting social media platforms and interactive computer service providers that host user-generated content. The court affirmed that platforms retain Section 230 immunity for most claims related to child sexual abuse material, including sex trafficking allegations and content amplification features. However, the ruling reversed protection for two specific areas, specifically that platforms can now face liability for defectively designed reporting infrastructure that makes it unnecessarily difficult to report illegal content, and for negligence per se when they fail to promptly report known child sexual abuse material to the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children as required by federal law. It was highlighted that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act shields online platforms from liability for user-generated content, meaning websites and apps aren't responsible for posts, comments, or other material created by their users.