Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford is going after Kik and its parent company, MediaLab.AI, filing a lawsuit accusing the messaging app of being a danger to Nevada’s children. Ford says Kik’s low barrier to entry and its anonymity features have turned it into a predator’s playground, a place where child sexual abuse material can circulate with little resistance. He’s charging them under the Nevada Deceptive Trade Practices Act and stacking on negligence, products liability, and unjust enrichment.
For those who need a reminder, Kik is that once-trendy messaging app that’s a hive of scum and villainy as well as sex offenders, pedophiles, CSAM collectors, and child traffickers. It lets kids chat with strangers without giving up a phone number or even an email address. That anonymity is exactly what predators love, and it’s why Kik has been a magnet for law enforcement investigations for more than a decade. In 2019, when Kik was circling the drain, it got scooped up by MediaLab.AI, a Los Angeles tech holding company that also owns Whisper, Amino, and other apps that thrive on secrecy and “community.”
Ford deserves credit for dragging Kik into court. States should be holding platforms accountable when they build apps that basically hang a “predators welcome” sign in neon. But here’s the problem. Kik is shielded by the Communications Decency Act of 1996. Section 230 of that law is the magic wand that lets tech companies wash their hands of user-generated crimes and content. As long as they can claim they’re just the platform, not the publisher, they walk away untouched.
As I said with platforms like craigslist and Backpage, 1996 might as well be the Stone Age of the internet. We were still dialing up on AOL, Google didn’t even exist yet, and the closest thing to a social network was a GeoCities guestbook. Even I, who has been terminally online for close to three decades, wasn’t on the internet yet. Yet somehow the same outdated law still governs today’s social media giants and shady messaging apps alike. It’s been nearly 30 years, and in tech terms, that’s practically prehistoric.
So yes, Aaron Ford is right to call Kik a danger and to haul MediaLab into court. But until Congress finds the backbone to revise the CDA for the modern internet, these lawsuits are more symbolic than seismic. Kik and apps like it will keep hiding behind 1996’s broken shield while kids pay the price.
(Sources)
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