Facebook Defeats Jawboning Lawsuit Over COVID Misinformation Removal–Rogalinski v. Meta
Rogalinski made several posts about COVID. Facebook added “missing context” labels to two of them and removed another one. Rogalinski claims that Facebook “censored” him on behalf of the government, so he tries a standard jawboning lawsuit. He gets the…
HuffPost Contributor Isn’t an “Agent,” So Their Content Qualifies for Section 230–KGS v. Huffington Post
This long-running lawsuit relates to publications made in 2015. I previously blogged a related Alabama Supreme Court ruling involving Facebook in 2019. In that post, I summarized the complicated and heart-breaking facts: This case involves an allegedly “predatory” adoption. As…
Retweets ≠ Endorsements (As a Matter of Law)–Flynn v. CNN
Some members of Gen. Michael Flynn’s family sued CNN for implying that they are QAnon followers. The case involves: a report aired by CNN on February 3, 2021, which was entitled “CNN Goes Inside a Gathering of QAnon Followers.” The…
Police Officer’s Racist Memes on a Personal Facebook Page Address “Matters of Public Concern”–Hernandez v. Phoenix
Hernandez was a Phoenix police officer. He posted anti-Muslim memes to his personal Facebook page, which apparently was open to the public. Unusually, the court opinion displays four of Hernandez’s meme posts so we can see exactly what he posted….
Announcing the Sixth Edition of Advertising & Marketing Law: Cases & Materials by Tushnet & Goldman
Rebecca Tushnet and I are pleased to announce the sixth edition of our casebook, Advertising & Marketing Law: Cases & Materials. It is available for purchase in the following formats: * DRM-free PDF file. Price: $12 * Kindle. Price: $9.99…
A Short Explainer of Why California’s Social Media Addiction Bill (AB 2408) Is Terrible
It’s “burn-down-the-Internet” week on the blog, during which I am recapping three bad California bills that the California legislature is poised to enact. Monday, I covered AB 2273, the Age-Appropriate Design Code. Yesterday, I covered AB587, an editorial transparency law….
A Short Explainer of Why California’s Mandatory Transparency Bill (AB 587) Is Terrible
It’s “burn-down-the-Internet” week on the blog, during which I will recap three bad California bills that the California legislature is poised to enact. Yesterday, I covered AB 2273, the Age-Appropriate Design Code. Today I’m covering AB587, an editorial transparency law…
A Short Explainer of How California’s Age-Appropriate Design Code Bill (AB2273) Would Break the Internet
It’s “burn-down-the-Internet” week on the blog, during which I will recap three bad California bills that the California legislature is poised to enact. Today’s bill is AB 2273, the most pernicious of the three. It’s styled as a “protect kids…
Lawyer’s Agreement to Online Terms if Investigating a Claim May Bind a Client
Knapke sued PeopleConnect for alleged violations of her publicity rights under Ohio law. PeopleConnect moved to compel arbitration on the basis that Knapke’s counsel Reilly assented to the terms of service in the course of his pre-filing investigative efforts. The…
School Can Discipline Student for Impersonating Teacher Online, Even if Other Students Added the Worst Content–Kutchinski v. Freeland School District
This case involves a 14 year old student HK (and his friends) who, while off-campus, thought it would be funny to create a fake Instagram profile of his biology teacher, Schmidt. I’ve blogged SO MANY similar cases since 2005 (see…