Carafano v. Metrosplash.com, Inc.
Issue
Whether Matchmaker.com lost § 230 immunity because it provided a structured multiple-choice questionnaire whose user-supplied answers, combined with user-uploaded photos, constituted a false and harassing profile of a third party.
What Happened
Matchmaker.com was a commercial internet dating service where members created anonymous profiles by answering a detailed questionnaire of more than fifty multiple-choice questions and up to eighteen open-ended essay questions. On October 23, 1999, an unknown person in Berlin created a fake profile of actress Christianne Carafano (known professionally as Chase Masterson) in the Los Angeles section of the site. The profile used publicly available photos of Carafano, filled in her home address in response to a location question, and selected sexually explicit multiple-choice answers suggesting she was seeking aggressive sexual contact. The profile also included an email address that generated an automatic reply with Carafano's home address and phone number. Carafano soon received threatening and sexually explicit voicemails, faxes, and emails from men who believed the profile was genuine. She and her son were forced to stay in hotels for several months. She contacted Matchmaker, which blocked the profile within days and deleted it shortly after. The district court denied Matchmaker's § 230 defense, finding that the questionnaire structure made the site a partial content provider. The Ninth Circuit reversed. Judge Thomas held that the profile was "almost entirely" the product of the third party's inputs — the site's multiple-choice framework played no material role in generating the harmful or defamatory character of the content. Because the content originated with the third party, Matchmaker was entitled to § 230(c)(1) immunity.
Why It Matters
Established that a website's use of structured questionnaires and profile templates does not strip it of § 230 immunity unless the platform's structure itself contributes to the harmful or illegal character of the content. The Ninth Circuit's broad reading of § 230 in Carafano was significantly qualified five years later in Roommates.com, which held that a platform loses immunity when its mandatory questionnaire elicits content that is itself unlawful.
How accurate was this summary?