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Reddit, the online message board with more than 52 million daily users, fails to stop child sex images from appearing on its platform, and even profits from it, a new nationwide class action lawsuit alleges.
In a class action filed Thursday in a California federal court, a plaintiff identified only as Jane Doe alleges Reddit violates the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act and California law in the way it handles child content images posted to its site.
The act makes it illegal for any entity to knowingly financially benefit from sex trafficking, including when a minor is made to engage in a commercial sex act.
However, “Reddit knowingly received and distributed child pornography depicting Plaintiff and the Class on their websites,” the class action alleges.
Doe says, when she was 16 years old, her then-boyfriend filmed them having sex without her knowledge. After they broke up, she says he posted the images and video clips to Reddit on various message boards.
After discovering the existence of the video and images online, Doe started reporting it to Reddit, pointing out both that it contained sexual content involving a minor, and that she did not consent to its posting.
However, Reddit was allegedly slow to act, and when it did take it down, Doe’s ex-boyfriend would simply upload it again to the site. Doe says Reddit never blocked his IP address, despite having the ability to do so.
Doe also alleges Reddit was faster to act when she reported a copyright issue, rather than a sexually explicit image of a child.
“Reddit’s refusal to act has meant that for the past several years Jane Doe has been forced to log on to Reddit and spend hours looking through some of its darkest and most disturbing subreddits so that she can locate the posts of her underage self and then fight with Reddit to have them removed,” the class action states.
Despite being founded in 2005, Doe says Reddit did not have a policy on preventing child sexual images until 2011. She says Reddit moderators have admitted in the past that they start their days by going through subreddits to remove offensive content.
In addition, the website profited off videos and images depicting Doe and the Class through the money it takes from advertisers and its high volume of traffic, the class action says.
“By permitting users to upload videos and images of Plaintiff and the Class and profiting from those videos and images, Defendant have become unjustly enriched at the expense of Plaintiff and the Class in an amount to be determined at trial.”
The lawsuit seeks to represent a nationwide Class of people who were under 18 when they appeared in an image or video uploaded to Reddit in the last 10 years, as well as a California subclass.
Doe is seeking an injunction to make Reddit comply with sex trafficking laws, as well as damages, fees, interest, attorney’s costs and a jury trial.
Meanwhile, in March, the world’s most popular pornography site XVideos was also hit with a class action lawsuit alleging it hosts child sex trafficking videos and its owners profit off the sexual abuse of children, a new class action alleges.
Should websites be doing more to ensure child sex trafficking content is kept from their platforms? Let us know in the comments.
The plaintiff is represented by Davida Brook, Krysta Kauble Pachman and Arun Subramanian of Susman Godfrey LLP and Steve Cohen of Pollock Cohen LLP.
The Reddit Child Sex Images Class Action Lawsuit is Doe v. Reddit Inc., Case No. 8:21-cv-00768, in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.
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