Plaintiff Can’t Use Trump’s Anti-Section 230 EO to Sue Facebook–Gomez v. Zuckenburg
This pro se/in pro per plaintiff sued Facebook because he couldn’t log into his account or open a new one. The plaintiff claimed Facebook violated Trump’s anti-Section 230 executive order, EO 13295, Preventing Online Censorship, 85 Fed. Reg. 34079 (May…
Section 230 Doesn’t Protect Repeating Rumors–La Liberte v. Reid
La Liberte spoke at a city council meeting. A photo of her speaking went viral because a “social media activist” posted the photo with a caption that she said racist things about a minority teenager in the photo. That turned…
Comments on the “Platform Accountability and Consumer Transparency Act” (the “PACT Act”)
Last month, Sens. Schatz and Thune introduced S. 4066, “Platform Accountability and Consumer Transparency Act” (the “PACT Act”). The bill was pitched as a narrow and modest bipartisan reform of Section 230; and Daphne Keller of Stanford labeled the bill…
Instagram User’s Lawsuit Over Terminated Account Gets Revived (But Not For Long)–Teatotaller v. Facebook
The plaintiff, a “queer hipster oasis” tea/coffee shop in Somersworth, NH, claims Instagram terminated its account without notice. It sued Instagram in small claims court for $9,999 and account restoration. There must be dozens or hundreds of similar lawsuits against…
Print-on-Demand Vendor Doesn’t Qualify for DMCA Safe Harbor–Feingold v. RageOn
This case involves two copyright-protected photos that users submitted to the RageOn print-on-demand service. Among other defenses, RageOn invoked the DMCA safe harbor. The Greg Young v. Zazzle case held that Zazzle qualified for the 512(c) safe harbor for displaying…
Q2 2020 Quick Links (Everything)
Copyright * Sony Music Entertainment v. Cox Communications, Inc., 2020 WL 3121306 (E.D. Va. June 2, 2020). Each downloaded song file generally can support its own statutory damage, but “compilations” only get one statutory damages award, and no double-counting of…
Court Can’t Compel Twitter to Shut Down Trump’s Account
This lawsuit involves the @realdonaldtrump Twitter account. Has any Twitter account ever generated more litigation? The plaintiffs allege that Twitter did not properly enforce its TOS against the account. The plaintiff sought two types of relief: (1) a declaration that…
“Shitty Media Men” List Operator Doesn’t Qualify for Section 230 (Yet)–Elliott v. Donegan
[Note: I will blog the Senate Judiciary Committee’s EARN IT bill in a blog post next week, after I stop crying.] This case involves a Google spreadsheet called “Shitty Media Men,” created by the defendant. The defendant’s goal was to…
Want to Learn More About Section 230? A Guide to My Work (UPDATED)
I’ve written a lot on Section 230 over the years. I thought it might be helpful to provide a narrated and highly selective bibliography: The Basics An Overview of the United States’ Section 230 Internet Immunity. This is the one-stop…
My Interview With Mathew Ingram Regarding Section 230
[Note: I did this interview with Mathew Ingram in late February–before the recent flood of new anti-Section 230 activity in DC that I still need to blog. I had always planned to share it here, but the issue got backburnered…