Grindr Not Liable for Underage Threesome

A recent US court case decision says that dating app Grindr is not liable for an underage sexual encounter that happened between its users.

Back in 2012, William F. Saponaro, Jr. was put in contact with an underage Grindr member through mutual acquaintance, and Grindr paid subscriber, Mark LeMunyon, in order to organise a threesome.

Saponaro was subsequently arrested for having sex with a minor, and faces up to 20+ years in jail.

In Saponora v. Grindr, Saponaro sued Grindr for negligence, claiming the dating app allowed a minor to access the app and misrepresent his age, as users of Grindr must be over 18.

Saponaro stated that he relied upon Grindr’s age restriction, despite the fact that he was not a member of the app.

The plaintiff said the app’s failure to enforce its age restriction directly resulted in his arrest and financial expenditures.

However U.S. District Judge Jerome Simandle dismissed the lawsuit, citing section 230 of the U.S. Communications Decency Act, which states:

“No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider…no cause of action may be brought and no liability may be imposed under any State or local law that is inconsistent with this section.”

In his final statement, Simandle described the precarious situation of suing social media platforms, saying:

“If social network hosts are faced with liability every time third-party communications on their networks result in harm, they are left with two extreme courses of action if they wish to ensure insulation from liability.

“Either over-police their networks, taking down communications that might ultimately be harmless; or, strip users of the ability to post communications altogether.”

Read the full court documents here.