Background
The case grew out of the August 2022 drowning of Julie Ann Moore, an Ohio resident who died at Dimple Rock on the Lower Youghiogheny River during a guided whitewater rafting trip she had booked online with White Water Adventurers, Inc. (WWA). Her estate, her two minor children, and her partner sued WWA along with the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, Penn State, an engineering consultant, and two FareHarbor entities — FareHarbor Holdings, LLC and FareHarbor B.V. — which had managed and optimized WWA’s website since 2018.
The plaintiffs’ core allegation against the FareHarbor entities was that they had operational and contractual control over WWA’s marketing site and used that control to remove or omit warnings about Dimple Rock, a rapid the complaint describes as “among the most lethal whitewater features in the United States.” According to the amended complaint, WWA’s site marketed the Lower Yough as suitable for novice rafters age twelve and up, while references to Dimple Rock — and warnings about its history of fatalities — were stripped from the site in the months before the trip was booked.
FareHarbor moved to dismiss on three grounds: lack of personal jurisdiction, immunity under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (47 U.S.C. § 230), and a contractual liability waiver in WWA’s terms of service. The court overruled all three objections. The Section 230 ruling is the one of broader interest.
The Court’s Section 230 Holding
Section 230(c)(1) protects a provider or user of an “interactive computer service” from being treated as the publisher or speaker of information provided by “another information content provider.” The statute’s central carve-out, § 230(f)(3), defines an “information content provider” as an entity “responsible, in whole or in part, for the creation or development” of the content at issue. A defendant that helped develop the offending material does not get the immunity.
Judge Vernon held that the plaintiffs had pleaded enough to put FareHarbor in the information-content-provider category, at least at the preliminary objection stage. The amended complaint alleged that FareHarbor exercised ownership and control over WWA’s website content, retained contractual authority to remove or direct the removal of information, actively designed and optimized the website, and knowingly participated in or encouraged the omission of warnings about Dimple Rock. The complaint further alleged that FareHarbor’s conduct was motivated in part by financial incentives shared with WWA and tied to trip bookings. Accepting those allegations as true — as a court must on a demurrer — the court concluded that the plaintiffs had pleaded that FareHarbor was “responsible, at least in part, for the development of the allegedly deficient content.” Section 230 therefore did not bar the claim.
The court also overruled the FareHarbor entities’ personal-jurisdiction challenge, applying the Zippo sliding-scale framework and finding purposeful availment because FareHarbor operates or manages more than 200 sites for Pennsylvania businesses and processed bookings and payments tied to in-forum activity. On the contractual waiver argument, the court held that the enforceability of the customer terms of service raised fact questions inappropriate for resolution at the pleading stage.
Key Takeaways
- The opinion is a useful data point on Section 230’s “information content provider” carve-out as applied to a SaaS-style booking and website-management vendor — not the more common social-media defendant.
- Pleading that a platform exercised contractual editorial control over specific content, was paid based on the resulting transactions, and participated in decisions to omit safety information was enough to survive demurrer. The court did not need to decide whether FareHarbor in fact developed the content; the well-pled allegations of editorial involvement were sufficient.
- Personal jurisdiction over an international platform operator (FareHarbor B.V. is Dutch; FareHarbor Holdings is Delaware/Colorado) was found based on the volume of in-forum customer sites and the platform’s revenue tied to in-forum transactions — a reminder that operating a fully-interactive, transaction-processing site for in-forum businesses can support specific jurisdiction even without a physical presence.
- This is a trial-court ruling on preliminary objections, not appellate precedent. It is persuasive at best, but it adds to a growing line of cases recognizing that platforms which actively shape content can lose Section 230 protection for the specific content they shaped.
Why It Matters
Section 230 has historically been read broadly to shield online platforms from claims premised on third-party content. Over the last several years, courts have been increasingly willing to test the edges of the “information content provider” carve-out, particularly when a platform is alleged to have made specific editorial choices about the content at issue — recommending it, designing prompts that produce it, or, as here, directing its removal. Companies offering “managed” or “all-in-one” website and booking services for small businesses should pay attention. Section 230 may still protect classic passive-host functions, but the more a vendor’s contract gives it control over what appears on a customer’s site — and the more closely the vendor’s revenue is tied to the resulting transactions — the more exposure that vendor has to claims that allege harm flowing from particular content choices.
For practitioners drafting platform-services contracts, the case is a reminder that contractual rights to “remove or direct the removal” of customer content can be cited in litigation as evidence of editorial control. Disclaimers that label the vendor a pure conduit will not control the analysis where the operational reality is one of active participation in content decisions.
Source
A copy of the opinion (judicial header markings removed) is available here: Stranyak v. White Water Adventurers — Opinion and Order (March 23, 2026).