MySpace claimed vindication on Thursday after a judge threw out a lawsuit filed on behalf of a 13-year-old girl who claims she was sexually assaulted by a man she met on the website.
In a decision that bodes well for the youth-oriented social networking website in similar suits, United States district court Judge Sam Sparks in Texas ruled on Tuesday that MySpace was not responsible for people’s honesty online or their arranged encounters.
“This decision reaffirms that under federal law internet sites like MySpace cannot be held liable for content posted by, or wrongdoing committed by, individuals who visit our site,” MySpace said in a written release.
The girl, identified in court paperwork as Julie Doe, claimed to be 18 years old in her MySpace profile and said she was sexually assaulted by a 19-year-old man she met through the website, according to court documents.
Criminal charges are pending against the man.
“MySpace had no duty to protect Julie Doe from [the man’s] criminal acts, nor to institute reasonable safety measures on its website,” Sparks said in a written ruling tossing out the $30-million lawsuit. “If anyone had a duty to protect Julie Doe, it was her parents, not MySpace.”
The lawsuit accused MySpace of fraud, negligence and recklessly failing to protect children who use the website to share their lives and make friends.
Sparks said the Communications Decency Act passed in 1996 gave MySpace and other websites protection from being “crippled by lawsuits arising out of third-party communications”.
Forcing MySpace to confirm the ages of its users and punishing it for not doing so “would of course stop MySpace’s business in its tracks and close this avenue of communication”, Sparks wrote.
MySpace, owned by News Corp in New York City, praised the judge’s decision. It said it is taking measures to improve the online safety of its users and that lawsuits are “not the appropriate way” to repair harm done in cases such as the one involving the Texas girl.
“Ultimately, internet safety is a shared responsibility,” MySpace chief security officer Hemanshu Nigam said in January while discussing a set of lawsuits filed on behalf of girls from the US states of California, New York, Texas, Pennsylvania and South Carolina.
“We encourage everyone to apply common-sense offline safety lessons in their online experiences and engage in open family dialogue about smart web practices.”
Each of the girls was lured into meetings with men who had chatted them up on MySpace and then plied them with drugs or alcohol and sexually abused them, according to the suits. — AFP