US Appeals Court Revives Negligence Lawsuit Against Elon Musk's X Over Child Exploitation Reporting

A U.S. federal appeals court has revived part of a lawsuit against Elon Musk's platform X, formerly Twitter, for allegedly failing to promptly report child sexual exploitation content involving two minors. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that X must face negligence claims for delaying the removal and reporting of a video containing explicit images of underage boys to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), after the content remained online for nine days and was viewed over 167,000 times. The case concerns incidents that occurred before Musk's 2022 acquisition of Twitter and was initially dismissed in 2023. Circuit Judge Danielle Forrest clarified that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act does not shield X once it has actual knowledge of illegal content and fails to act promptly. While the court dismissed claims that X profited from or amplified child exploitation content, it allowed claims that X's reporting system made it difficult to flag abusive material. Plaintiffs' attorneys expressed optimism about pursuing discovery and trial to hold X accountable.