Families can sue app developer for breaking its anti-bullying pledge, says court
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
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, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals said Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act shouldn’t block a claim that Yolo misrepresented its terms of service, overruling a lower court decision. But it determined the app can’t be held liable for alleged design defects that allowed harassment, letting a different part of that earlier ruling stand.
Yolo was a Snapchat-integrated app that let users send anonymous messages, but in 2021, it was hit with a lawsuit after a teenage user died by suicide. The boy, Carson Bride, had received harassing and sexually explicit messages...