What Is It With “Kennedy” Politicians Bringing Weak Lawsuits Against Facebook?–Baldwin-Kennedy v. Meta

Ronda Baldwin-Kennedy, a lawyer, ran for the US Senate in Nevada as a Republican. She got less than 2,000 votes in the June 2024 primary. Now, she’s suing Meta for a variety of gripes related to her Facebook and Instagram accounts, such as being locked out of her account and not being able to get a blue check. Her claims go nowhere.

Liability Limits in Facebook’s TOS. “several of her causes of action are based at least in part on the alleged failure to keep her account secure…and are therefore precluded by the Terms of Service and Terms of Use.” See the cited Damner v. Facebook case.

Negligence. Baldwin-Kennedy argued that Facebook owed her a duty to restore her account access. The TOS doesn’t impose such a duty: “nothing in the Terms promises or
guarantees that Defendant will work with a user to restore access to an account at all, let alone on a specific timeline. The Terms only state that Defendant may take certain actions in response to harmful conduct or violating content.”

Breach of Contract. “Plaintiff appears to ask the Court to override the explicit language of the Terms of Service and Terms of Use to be consistent with a user’s alleged but unwritten expectations. This is impermissible.”

Election Interference. Plaintiff claimed that Facebook participated in election interference “because it has not taken action to prevent third parties from making changes to Plaintiff’s campaign page on Facebook and because it has denied her ‘a verification blue checkmark’ on Instagram.” The court responds: “Plaintiff cannot sue Defendant based on what she thinks the law should—but does not—say.”

Title II Discrimination. She claims Facebook withheld the blue check verification due to her race. “Plaintiff has also offered no relevant authority supporting her contention that Facebook and Instagram are places of public accommodation for purposes of Title II.” Cites to Lewis v. Google, Ebeid v. Facebook, Noah v. AOL. “Plaintiff’s unsupported suggestion that the meaning of public accommodation should be “re-evaluated in light of the growing important of digital platforms in public and political life,” may be an argument for Congress, but not this Court.”

(I’ll note that, on the screenshot above, she apparently now has a blue check for that page at least…).

The court dismisses the case (with leave to amend, but an amendment will fail). She now has something in common with another more-famous Kennedy politician–an unsuccessful lawsuit against Facebook.

Case Citation: Baldwin-Kennedy v. Meta Platforms Inc., 2024 WL 4565091 (N.D. Cal. Oct. 23, 2024). The complaint.