Dear Friend,

It was around 11:30 pm when the text message came that would blow Jane’s world apart. 

[Your son] is on the phone with my niece right now and he’s discussing that he doesn’t want to live anymore and is suicidal. 

Jane couldn’t believe it. By all appearances, her son seemed to be thriving. Surely, there must be some mistake!  

But that night, Jane spoke to her son, and he told her that it was true. He was suicidal because of a video that was being passed around at his school. 

As Jane listened to her son, the horrifying story unfolded. 

Three years before, when John was thirteen, a sex trafficker posing as a sixteen-year-old girl had groomed John and his friend into sending sexually explicit photos and videos of themselves.

A compilation of this material was consequently posted to Twitter. There, it gathered 167,000 views and was retweeted more than 2,000 times.

It was also passed around by people in John’s school, eventually driving John to contemplate ending his life.  

After John shared the story with his mother, the two of them contacted Twitter multiple times, begging the company to take the child sexual abuse material down and even sending photos of John’s ID, proving he was a minor.

Only to be met with this chilling response: 

"We've reviewed the content, and didn't find a violation of our policies, so no action will be taken at this time." 

Jane and John are pseudonyms, but these experiences happened to real people.  

Which is why the NCOSE Law Center is representing John and his friend in a lawsuit against Twitter, for profiting from the sex trafficking of the two minors.  

Yesterday saw the most recent step in this case, in which Lisa Haba, Special Counsel for NCOSE and Partner at the Haba Law Firm, argued before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals that the plaintiffs’ sex-trafficking claim against Twitter should move forward. 

During Twitter’s segment of the oral argument, one Judge stated to the company’s lawyer:  

“The facts aren’t good for you in this case. I mean, in this case, Twitter was asked to take [child sexual abuse material] down and Twitter said ‘we’ve looked at it and we’re not taking it down.’”  

John Doe #1 and John Doe #2 v. Twitter is a watershed case for holding tech companies accountable for knowingly facilitating sexual abuse and exploitation. 

Please help the NCOSE Law Center Fight for Justice for Survivors!

The NCOSE Law Center is dedicated to representing John Doe and other survivors like him in litigation against the profiteers of their exploitation. This work is possible because of YOUR generosity and support.  
 
Please consider making a gift to the Law Center today, so that we can continue fighting for survivors!