On Friday, a federal appeals court reinstated some lawsuits against Elon Musk’s X, alleging that the platform has become a haven for child exploitation. However, the court affirmed that X is largely protected from liability for harmful content.

While rejecting multiple claims, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco mandated that X (formerly Twitter) must promptly report a video featuring explicit images of two minor boys, asserting that it was negligent for not reporting it immediately to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC).

This incident occurred prior to Musk’s acquisition of Twitter in 2022. A judge dismissed the case in December 2023, and X’s legal counsel has yet to provide a comment. Musk was not named as a defendant.

One plaintiff, John Do 1, recounted that at the age of 13, he and his friend, John Do 2, were lured on Snapchat into sharing nude photos, believing they were communicating with a 16-year-old girl.

In reality, Snapchat users were trafficking in child exploitation images, threatening the plaintiff, and soliciting more photos from him. These images were ultimately compiled into a video that was disseminated on Twitter.

Court documents revealed that Twitter took nine days to report the content to NCMEC after becoming aware of it, during which time the video amassed over 167,000 views.

Circuit Judge Daniel Forest stated that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which typically shields online platforms from liability for user-generated content, does not protect X from negligence claims once it became aware of the images.

“The facts presented here, along with the statutory ‘actual knowledge’ requirement, establish that the responsibility to report child pornography is distinct from its role as a publisher to NCMEC,” she wrote on behalf of the three-judge panel.

X should further argue that its infrastructure posed challenges in reporting child abuse images.

It claimed immunity from allegations of intentionally facilitating sex trafficking and developed a search function that “amplifies” images of child exploitation.

Dani Pinter, representing the plaintiffs and speaking for the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, provided a statement: