The plaintiffs are “conservative content creators” (i.e., QAnon enthusiasts) who posted videos to YouTube. YouTube suspended their accounts. The plaintiffs sued for First Amendment violations (presumably a 1983 claim). The court previously denied a TRO. YouTube now gets the case…
Martillo claims that six social media services suspended his accounts because he is an anti-Zionist. He sued for Title II discrimination. The court responds: “the defendants’ social media platforms are not places of ‘public accommodation.’ The statutory definition of a…
Trigger warning: this is a terrible opinion. Let’s hope the judge corrects his errors or that the appeals court does it for him. * * * This opinion addresses a venerable issue in Internet Law: can a website control how…
When I first saw the Justice Against Malicious Algorithms Act. my draft version didn’t identify its sponsors. I assumed it was yet another sloppy and unserious Section 230 reform proposal from representatives like Rep. Gosar or Gohmert. You can imagine…
This case involves an alleged case of corporate hijacking. The plaintiff alleges that it bought a controlling interest in a corporate entity opaquely named American Diversified Holdings Corp. (“ADHC”) from Remo. Remo then allegedly dissolved the Nevada entity and, without…
This year, I have been serving as a Knight Foundation visiting scholar along with Prof. Mary Anne Franks of University of Miami. I’m excited to publicly announce our project. Working with the Knight Foundation team, including John Sands, we assembled…
This is one of the many lawsuits against social media services for allegedly providing material support to terrorists. These cases have all failed–with the partial exception of the Ninth Circuit meltdown (3 judges; 3 opinions) in Gonzalez v. Google LLC,…
This is a scraping lawsuit brought by Southwest airlines against Kiwi.com. The court issues an injunction restricting Kiwi from scraping Southwest’s website. Southwest does not allow online travel agencies to sell Southwest flights without the approval of Southwest. Its terms…
Cloudflare Isn’t Liable for Providing Services to Alleged Infringers–Mon Cheri Bridals v. Cloudflare
The plaintiffs claim copyright ownership in wedding dress designs. They also claim that knockoff retailers are infringing those rights. Frustrated by the whack-a-mole enforcement efforts against individual retailers, the plaintiffs sued Cloudflare for providing support services to them, including caching,…
In July, Trump et al sued Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube in Florida for terminating his accounts. At the time, I laid out a 6-step prediction for how things would go: We’ve reached Step 2 in the YouTube case. Based on…