internet
Is there legislation regarding minors joining dating websites?
<p>Are dating websites a special category of websites that must follow certain regulations in terms of who they are allowed to join their site? So if I am a 15 year old, does the law in the USA allow a dating APP to let me join?</p>

<p>U.S. law does not forbid 15 year olds from joining dating websites. Direct U.S. regulation of Internet communications mostly via the <a href="https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=b149fae3-6516-4df6-bb91-4ee20f1d4def" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Children's Online Privacy Protection Act</a> (COPPA) has a cutoff age of 13 years old.</p>
<p>This said, nothing obligates websites to allow minors to join their dating app, and they may be reluctant to do so for fear that if you are mistreated by someone as a result of the app that they could be held responsible.</p>
<p>In particular, amendments to the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Decency_Act" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Communications Decency Act (CDA)</a> called <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Decency_Act#FOSTA-SESTA" rel="nofollow noreferrer">FOSTA-SESTA</a> for the &quot;Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA) and &quot;Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act (SESTA)&quot; which took effect April 11, 2018, limited the prior near total protection from liability under <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Section 230</a> of the CDA. The amendments maked it illegal to knowingly assist, facilitate, or support sex trafficking, and amended the Communications Decency Act's section 230 safe harbors (which make online services immune from civil liability for their users' actions) to exclude enforcement of federal or state sex trafficking laws from immunity.</p>
<p><a href="https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/R43597.pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Federal sex trafficking laws</a> largely apply to commercial sex by people under the age of 18, which an online dating app could facilitate, if used by someone inclined to use it in that manner. The two main federal sex trafficking laws are as follows:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Section 1591 now provides in part the following:</p>
<p>“<strong>Whoever knowingly</strong> in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce,
or within the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the
United States, <strong>recruits, entices, harbors, transports, provides,
obtains, advertises, maintains, patronizes, or solicits by any means a
person</strong>; knowing, or <strong>in reckless disregard of the fact, that means
of force, threats of force, fraud, coercion ... , or any combination
of such means will be used to cause the person to engage in a
commercial sex act, or that the person has not attained the age of 18
years and will be caused to engage in a commercial sex act</strong>,” shall
be imprisoned not less than 15 years (not less than 10 years, if the
victim is 14 years of age or older and the offender is less than 18
years of age).</p>
<p>The Mann Act outlaws prostitution and unlawful sexual activities that
involve interstate or foreign travel. It consists of three principal
substantive sections.</p>
<p>Section 2421 proscribes the interstate or foreign transportation of
someone for purposes of prostitution or unlawful sexual activity;
misconduct which is punishable by imprisonment for not more than 10
years.</p>
<p>Section 2422 condemns coercing or enticing another person to travel in
interstate or foreign commerce to engage in prostitution or unlawful
sexual activity, or <strong>using interstate communications to coerce or
entice a child to engage in such conduct</strong>. The communications offense
is punishable by imprisonment for not less than 10 years; the travel
offense by imprisonment for not more than 20 years.</p>
<p>Section 2423 outlaws four distinct offenses:</p>
<p>(1) §2423(a) - transportation of a child in interstate or foreign
commerce for purposes of prostitution or unlawful sexual purposes;</p>
<p>(2) §2423(b)—interstate or foreign travel for purposes of unlawful
sexual abuse of a child;</p>
<p>(3) §2423(c)—foreign travel and subsequent unlawful sexual abuse of a
child; and</p>
<p>(4) §2423(d)— <strong>arranging, for profit, the travel outlawed in any of
these offenses</strong>.</p>
<p>The first is punishable by imprisonment for not less than 10 years,
each of the others by imprisonment for not more than 30 years.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>So, the reluctance of a dating app to allow minors to use their services is understandable. They either need to aggressively police a low cost or free except for ad support service with considerable employee expense to do so, to avoid the risk of FOSTA-SESTA authorized liability, or they can not offer the service at all.</p>
<p>In a nutshell, the app providers consider you to be jail-bait and don't want to face the associated risks.</p>
