A Peek Into the Long Tail of Facebook’s Litigation Docket

May 22, 2024 · by · in Content Regulation, Licensing/Contracts

I’ve retired my old Quick Links format, so instead I’m rounding up a couple of Facebook cases that hit my alerts.

Georgia Auto Group LLC v. Meta Platforms Inc., 2024 WL 2260718 (M.D. Ga. May 17, 2024)

I’m blogging this one for completeness because I remain fascinated by the incredible futility of account termination/content removal lawsuits.

This case got a little media coverage in October. The principal of an auto dealership lost access to his personal Facebook account for unspecified reasons, which also meant he couldn’t access his business page. He sued Facebook for negligence in his home court. Facebook invoked the venue selection clause in its TOS to transfer the case to Facebook’s home court.

The court has nothing to discuss. The plaintiff sued over account access, which is squarely governed by the venue selection clause. As this court notes, many other courts have upheld Facebook’s TOS, including Franklin v. Facebook, Loomer v. Facebook, and Miller v. Facebook. The plaintiff will now get to enjoy some California hospitality until his case is inevitably dismissed by N.D. Cal. courts (or the arbitrator, if the case gets sent there).

Allen v. Facebook, 2024 WL 2260363 (D. Kan. May 15, 2024)

A followup to this post. This is a prisoner pro se case. The plaintiff is concerned about something related to interference with his mind by AI. He styles the case as a 1983 deprivation of rights, which requires state action. The court says: “Federal courts have uniformly rejected attempts to treat…social media companies as state actors under Section 1983.” Cites to Rutenburg v. Twitter, Howard v. AOL, Ebeid v. Facebook, Nyabwa v. Facebook, Shulman v. Facebook.com, Kinderstart.com LLC v. Google, Langdon v. Google, Cyber Promotions v. Am. Online, Medina v. Facebook, McWaters v. Houston.

Selected Posts About State Action Claims