The Supreme Court will not hear a challenge to the technological liability of a teenager trained on Snapchat

The Supreme Court will not consider challenging the scope of a federal law that immunizes technology companies from liability for their users’ content brought by a teenager that was allegedly groomed by a teacher on Snapchat.

The anonymous Texas teen said his high school science teacher used the picture-based instant messaging app to groom him, trick him into drug use and then sexually assault him when he was 15.

The teenager sought to hold Snap Inc. accountable for having “negligently designed an environment filled with sexual predators and then lured children.” His lawyers also claimed that Snap “knew or should have known,” given its internal technology, that the teen was being groomed.

His petition, filed with the high court in March, sought to subject Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act to a new test. The law says that internet service providers cannot be held responsible as “publishers” or “broadcasters” of content on their platforms.

Rather than hold Snap as a publisher or speaker liable, the teen asked the high court to consider whether Section 230 immunizes Internet service providers from any lawsuits related to their own misconduct just because third-party content is also involved.

“The use of social media by American teenagers is almost universal. Every time a teen updates a feed, they could be the target of online abuse. However, social media companies are not taking reasonable and obvious steps to protect children online, and courts have applied Section 230 to prevent any means of holding them accountable,” the petition reads.

“Review by this Court is necessary now,” it continues. “More delays mean more irresponsibility and more tragedy, like the abuse that occurred here.”

Justice Clarence Thomas, joined by Justice Neil Gorsuch, wrote in dissent that there would be “other opportunities” for the matter to be addressed by the high court, while warning that there is “danger of delay.”

“Social media platforms have increasingly used §230 as a get-out-of-jail-free card,” Thomas wrote.

The teenager’s lawyers called the scope of the law a matter of “exceptional importance,” suggesting that his case could serve as an ideal vehicle to address the issue. They also argued that Congress has done little to act on the broad protections of Section 230 and “almost certainly will not do so now.”

“Even if there were some hope of Congressional action, this Court should not sit idly by waiting for Congress to do something when, properly construed, Section 230 does not prohibit claims, like Doe’s, that are based on misconduct by the platform itself. Internet,” they wrote. “Excessive immunity under Section 230 is a judicially created problem and this Court’s intervention is the solution.”

Meanwhile, Snap urged the justices to deny the teen’s petition, calling it a “poor vehicle” for the “referendum” sought on Section 230.

“The petition invites the Court to consider the limits of [Section 230]but the facts of this case, as alleged in the petitioner’s complaint, place Snap squarely at the heart of this provision,” Snap’s lawyers wrote in court filings.

This story originally appeared on thehill.com read the full story