Cyber-bullying: Lawsuit based on product liability

A man has filed a harassment lawsuit against the Grindr dating app (as reported via NBC News). The claim is based on consumer protection from dangerous or unsafe products.

Matthew Herrick is claiming that he was harassed via the Grindr app, through a former partner creating fake profiles that impersonated Herrick. “The alleged harassment continued for months, even after Herrick obtained a temporary restraining order against Grindr that required the company to disable the impersonating profiles.”

Online bullying is concerning to me, through direct experience. When I worked as a journalist, I was “trolled” by anonymous commenting. In my writings, I argued that comments should be tied to a registered account.

More recently, I became the unwilling audience to a campaign on Facebook to deliberately “shame” another person. I wondered then, and continue to wonder now, how we can move beyond an impulse to humiliate people and destroy their lives and careers?

Currently, people have little recourse if they’re subject to online bullying, because a “free-speech” law protects companies from liability for content that is posted by “third-parties.” But this could change if Herrick is successful with his lawsuit.

In the words of David Ingram, reporting for NBC News: “[Herrick’s] lawsuit alleges that the software developers who write code for Grindr have been negligent, producing an app that’s defective in its design and that is ‘fundamentally unsafe’ and ‘unreasonably dangerous’ — echoing language that’s more typically used in lawsuits about, say, a faulty kitchen appliance or a defective car part.”

Speaking as someone who strongly believes that bullying is not “free speech,” this case intrigues me for possibly holding companies responsible for abuses their platforms facilitate.