Content Moderators’ Lawsuit Over Traumatic Work Fails Again–Aguilo v. Cognizant
This case involves Cognizant, a business process outsourcer (BPO) that performed content moderation work for Facebook. (Cognizant has since exited the field). In 2021, a federal court dismissed a putative class action lawsuit against Cognizant for trauma experienced by the…
Anti-Cyberstalking Statute Must Be Read Narrowly to Keep It Constitutional–U.S. v. Yung
I’m blogging this in part because of the shocking facts. Ho Ka Terence Yung really wanted to attend Georgetown Law. He did an alumni interview that went poorly and was rejected soon after. (Yung ended up attending UT Austin). Blaming…
Facebook Moderator Defeats Defamation Lawsuit Over Termination Explanation–Margolies v. Rudolph
This is a case in the #MeToo genre. Rudolph runs a “private” Facebook group called The Green Lounge with about 14,000 members. Margolies was a member and made in-group connections with substantial commercial value to him. On June 3, 2020,…
Quick Links From the Past Year, Part 1 (CCPA and Privacy)
[My approach to quick links is obviously not working very well. C’est la vie.] CCPA [Since I’ve got some CCPA links, it’s an excuse to resurrect the dumpster fire meme. Remember, the CPRA meme is the rolling van on fire.]…
Uber Isn’t Liable for Rapes Committed By Fake Drivers–Doe 1 v. Uber
Rapists pretended to be Uber drivers, picked up women under false pretenses, and raped them. As the court summarizes, “Jane Does seek to hold Uber liable for failing to warn them about or implement other measures to protect them against…
Supreme Court Restores Injunction Against Texas HB 20!–NetChoice v. Paxton
Yesterday, the Supreme Court granted the emergency application to restore the injunction against HB 20, Texas’ social media censorship law. The vote was 5-4, with Barrett, Breyer, Kavanaugh, Roberts, and Sotomayor voting to reinstate the injunction, and Alito, Gorsuch, Kagan,…
Section 230 Helps Craigslist Defeat Sex Trafficking Case–LH v. Marriott
This is another sex trafficking case against Craigslist. The plaintiff’s position primarily focuses on craigslist’s creation of a section of its platform devoted to “erotic services,” but also points to features like craigslist’s embedded messaging system (which allows for confidential…
Section 230 Helps Salesforce Defeat Sex Trafficking Lawsuit–GG v. Salesforce
This is another lawsuit where the plaintiff claims to have been sex trafficked on Backpage. Backpage used Salesforce as its CRM vendor, so the plaintiff claims Salesforce should be liable for the victimization. I’m aware of two other decisions involving…
Is Google’s Search Engine a “Common Carrier”? (Seriously???)–Ohio ex rel Yost v. Google
This is a crazy case. Ohio AG Yost claims that Google’s search engine is a common carrier and a public utility. Nominally, his goal is to redress Google self-preferencing, but that’s a transparently pretextual excuse to censor search results and…
Big Ruling for Free Speech: Most of Florida’s Social Media Censorship Law (SB 7072) Remains Enjoined–NetChoice v. Attorney General
On Monday, a unanimous three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit issued an important Internet free speech opinion, NetChoice v. Attorney General (a/k/a NetChoice v. Moody). The opinion holds that the key parts of Florida’s social media censorship law (SB 7072)…