Milan D. Smith Jr.

Milan D. Smith Jr. is a United States circuit judge on the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, appointed in 2006. He authored the panel's 2022 opinion in Does 1-6 v. Reddit, Inc., a closely watched case in which pseudonymous plaintiffs alleged that Reddit had knowingly profited from user-posted child sexual abuse material in violation of the federal sex-trafficking statute as amended by FOSTA. Writing for the panel, Smith held that the FOSTA exception to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act requires plaintiffs to plead that a website knowingly participated in and benefited from a sex-trafficking venture, a standard the plaintiffs had not met, and the court affirmed dismissal of the suit. The opinion became an influential appellate interpretation of how FOSTA interacts with Section 230's broad liability shield for online platforms, and it is frequently cited in debates over intermediary liability.