• by Wendy Davis , Yesterday

A federal judge has thrown out a lawsuit by families of cyberbullying victims against Yolo, a former Snapchat extension that enabled users to anonymously message each other.

The families claimed that Yolo wrongly failed to honor statements in its policies, including that it would unmask abusive users. For instance, the company's allegedly told users: "No bullying. If you send harassing messages to our users, your identity will be revealed," and "Be kind, respectful, show compassion with other users, otherwise you will be banned."

But U.S. District Court Judge Fred Slaughter in the Central District of California said in a ruling issued last week that such statements were too subjective to warrant the conclusion that Yolo made false representations to users.

He added that Yolo's statements were directed at harassers -- not victims.

"In each of the alleged misrepresentations, it is clear that Yolo is speaking directly to bullies, telling them that if they engage in certain disapproved behavior, 'your identity will be revealed' or 'you will be banned,'" he wrote.

"There is no indication that Yolo is speaking to, or making any representation to, anyone else, including the victims of any bullying, harassment, or unkind, disrespectful, or noncompassionate messages," he added.

The ruling came in a dispute dating to 2021, when family members of Carson Bride and other cyberbullying victims brought a class-action complaint against Yolo. Bride committed suicide in 2020 after being harassed on the app.

The families brought several claims, including that the app promoted cyberbullying by enabling anonymous messaging, and that it misrepresented its unmasking policies.

Slaughter initially dismissed the complaint, ruling that Yolo was protected by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which immunizes companies from liability over content posted by users.

The family then appealed to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which partially revived the case. That court upheld the dismissal of claims centered on Yolo's design, ruling that those claims were foreclosed by Section 230 because they sought to hold Yolo responsible for harassing speech.

But the appellate court said Section 230 didn't protect Yolo from claims that it falsely advertised it would reveal identities of people who posted abusive content.

The family members unsuccessfully tasked the Supreme Court to resurrect those design-related claims, arguing that Section 230 shouldn't protect companies that design products “with defective safety features that failed to protect children against obvious harms.”

After the Supreme Court refused to hear the case, the matter returned to Slaughter for further proceedings regarding the plaintiffs' claim that Yolo failed to honor representations to users.

Meta is currently facing a similar lawsuit by people who say they were scammed by ads on the platform. The plaintiffs in that matter argue that Meta failed to honor statements in its terms of service and "community standards" sections -- including that it would remove fraudulent content.

Meta sought a dismissal before trial, arguing that the statements in its terms of service and community standards impose rules on Facebook users, as opposed to obligations on the company.

U.S. District Court Judge Jeffrey White in the Northern District of California rejected Meta's bid to dismiss the case, ruling in September that the allegations, if proven true, could support claims that Meta broke its contract with users and violated its duty of good faith.

Meta is now appealing that ruling to the 9th Circuit.