Repeated Unwanted Emails to Politician’s Personal Email Address Can be Harassment–Hagedorn v. Cattani
This is a First Amendment retaliation case. Plaintiff alleges that local officials retaliated against her for exercising her First Amendment rights. One of the defendants is mayor of the small village where plaintiff resided (Timberlake, “a small village of six-…
YouTube Defeats Defamation Claim in ‘Remove-and-Relocate’ Case–Bartholomew v. YouTube
YouTube has been sued numerous times for “removing-and-relocating” videos it thinks were promoted by spam. When it does a remove-and-relocate, YouTube takes down the video, discloses at the original URL that “This video has been removed because its content violated YouTube’s…
How SESTA Undermines Section 230’s Good Samaritan Provisions
The following is my response to Questions for the Record submitted by Sen. Cortez Masto. Given that she has already co-sponsored SESTA following the Manager’s Amendment and IA’s flip, my response may be too late to matter (not that it would…
Would Shutting Down Backpage Reduce Violence Against Women? (Guest Blog Post)
by guest blogger Alex Levy Many activists assert that the proliferation of online platforms that facilitate commercial sex has led to increased rates of exploitation and violence against women. This belief has motivated a slew of wide-ranging attacks against websites…
Manager’s Amendment for SESTA Slightly Improves a Still-Terrible Bill
On Friday, a Manager’s Amendment to SESTA was announced. The good news is that its revised language slightly improved the bill. The bad news is that SESTA remains bad policy. The worse news is that SESTA is now well-positioned to pass the Senate Commerce Committee and…
US Court Protects Google From Canadian Court’s Delisting Order–Google v. Equustek
[It’s impossible to blog about Section 230 without reminding you that it remains highly imperiled.] Datalink allegedly misappropriated Equustek’s trade secrets to develop competitive products. Equustek sued Datalink in Canadian courts and obtained various court orders. The Datalink principal fled Canada…
Another Human Trafficking Expert Raises Concerns About SESTA (Guest Blog Post)
By guest blogger Nyssa P. Chopra I’ve been an advocate of anti-human trafficking initiatives since I first became involved with the issue when I worked at the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi in the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement….
Another SESTA Linkwrap (Week of October 30)
I doubt I’ll do weekly updates on SESTA, but I had enough new developments since last week’s linkwrap to do another. * On Friday, Communications Daily (in “Thune Sees Broadband Infrastructure as Top Senate Commerce Telecom Priority for Rest of 2017”) reported…
Association Isn’t Liable for Its Members’ Message Board Postings–Inge v. Central Motorcycle Roadracing Association
[It’s impossible to blog about Section 230 without reminding you that it remains highly imperiled.] Political turmoil can emerge in any community. This case involves a contested election for the Central Motorcycle Roadracing Association’s board. Unsuccessful candidate Inge claimed the organization’s leadership…
Another Court Rejects ‘Material Support To Terrorists’ Claims Against Social Media Sites–Gonzalez v. Google
[It’s impossible to blog about Section 230 without reminding you that it remains highly imperiled.] Numerous lawsuits have been filed claiming social media services “materially support” terrorists because terrorist groups disseminate their content via the services. 1-800-LAW-FIRM (I kid you not) is behind…