SAN FRANCISCO—A panel for the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling last week affirming an adult tube website's immunity under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 in a lawsuit that was initially filed with much fanfare by a plaintiffs' legal team led by the conservative anti-porn National Center on Sexual Exploitation.
The National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE), featuring its controversial senior counsel Dani Pinter and other anti-pornography lawyers and law firms, filed a lawsuit on behalf of the Jane Doe plaintiff against subsidiaries and shell corporations tied to WebGroup Czech Republic, the Czechia-headquartered parent firm of the XVideos and XNXX tube sites.
Two judges of the three-person panel voted to affirm a lower court decision from 2025 that indicated that the plaintiff, known as "Jane Doe," could not apply a FOSTA exception to deny the adult tube site, its ownership group, and its other affiliated properties legal immunity under Section 230. The third judge concurred in part, but dissented in part.
The ruling is a blow to the plaintiff as the Ninth Circuit panel ultimately affirmed a dismissal of all claims brought on behalf of Jane Doe on grounds that WebGroup has immunity.
NCOSE filed a federal class action lawsuit in March 2021, with Doe as the lead plaintiff. NCOSE and co-counsel from several major personal injury law firms, including Kazerouni Law Group, Levin Papantonio Rafferty, the Zarzaur Law Firm, Laffey Bucci & Kent, and Conrad O’Brien, filed the suit in a U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.
They initially alleged that WebGroup knowingly hosted and profited from child sexual abuse material depicting Jane Doe, who was reportedly trafficked and sold for sex as a minor. At least four videos depicting Doe's abuse were allegedly hosted on WebGroup-owned platforms, including XVideos via the "official channel" of a supposed "content partner" account.
Throughout the case, attorneys for Doe attempted to argue that WebGroup Czech Republic engaged in a sex trafficking venture with the "content partner," who is classified as a third party under most standard interpretations of Section 230. The website's lawyers cited Section 230 as immunizing the platform and its owners from the conduct of a third-party user.
Section 230 is regarded as the "First Amendment of the internet," as the controversial statute is primarily interpreted to bolster self-regulation and content moderation on "interactive computer services" that permit third-party users to publish content. That means legal liability for platforms covered by Section 230's immunity provisions is theoretically sacrosanct.
Doe's attorneys used FOSTA-SESTA as their trump card. This was effective throughout the litigation period, especially when the Ninth Circuit overturned a previous district court ruling in early 2024 that cited Section 230 immunity as a means to halt the case against XVideos due to the user-uploaded content depicting Doe's victimization. This is no longer the case.
The controversial FOSTA-SESTA law, which NCOSE championed and had a central role in getting adopted and signed into law during Republican President Donald Trump's first term, changes Section 230's liability protections to permit civil lawsuits and criminal charges against web platforms that host content promoting prostitution or sex trafficking.
Given the sweeping nature of the law, FOSTA-SESTA has been criticized by sex workers' rights activists as forcing digital sex workers engaging in consensual commercial sex work offline and into far more dangerous situations. AVN also reported previously that FOSTA-SESTA has been labeled as overly broad, despite affirmation of its constitutional nature.
For the immediate developments in Jane Doe's case against WebGroup, the Ninth Circuit found that her attorneys failed to adequately offer a sound legal argument to apply the so-called "FOSTA exception" and deprive the defendant class of its claimed Section 230 immunity.
The three judges wrote in their decision, dated August 12, "For Doe to invoke the FOSTA exception, WebGroup 'must knowingly benefit from and knowingly assist, support, or facilitate sex trafficking activities,' which 'requires actual knowledge and a causal relationship between affirmative conduct furthering the sex-trafficking venture and receipt of a benefit.'"
"Doe alleges that WebGroup maintains 'profit-sharing relationships [with] sex traffickers, such as the channel partner who distributed Jane Doe’s abuse videos on the XVideos,'" explains the court's decision. "But despite using the term 'sex traffickers,' Doe does not allege that this channel partner 'recruit[ed], entice[d], harbor[ed], transport[ed], provide[d], obtain[ed], advertise[d], maintain[ed], patronize[d], or solicit[ed]' her 'to engage in a commercial sex act,' as defined in the statute."
"Nor does Doe adequately plead WebGroup’s knowledge of her sex trafficking: Doe alleges that she 'reached out to XVideos and XNXX multiple times over the years, beginning in at least 2017, requesting her abuse videos be removed,'" the judges ruled.
In other words, the plaintiff failed to establish a connection between a legally operating firm and a criminal sex trafficking venture that victimized Doe and potentially others.
"Therefore, Doe fails to adequately allege WebGroup’s knowledge of and participation in sex trafficking activities for the FOSTA exception to apply," the decision concluded.
Corey Silverstein, a First Amendment attorney focusing on adult industry clientele, told AVN in a statement that he is pleased with the Ninth Circuit's decision.
He said, "I am pleased that the Ninth Circuit affirmed the dismissal of every claim against WebGroup. The court correctly applied established Section 230 precedent, recognizing that neutral platform functions do not make a website the creator or developer of unlawful third-party content."
Silverstein added, "The court also confirmed that FOSTA’s exception requires plausible allegations of actual knowledge and affirmative participation in a specific sex-trafficking venture—not conclusory labels or generalized notice.
He concluded, "The underlying allegations are unquestionably serious, but liability must still be determined according to the facts pleaded and the requirements Congress enacted."