Twitter Wins Another Account Termination Case–Yuksel v. Twitter
This is another account termination/suspension case, which turns out like all of the others. Yuksel was a longtime Twitter user with 142k followers. He claims that Twitter suspended his account…
Fourth Circuit Takes a Wrecking Ball to Zeran and Section 230–Henderson v. Public Data
Ugh, this Fourth Circuit opinion is terrible. I instantly knew it was written by a Trump appointee from the Federalist Society because it had the characteristic self-assured yet sloppy writing…
Does the CFAA Help Airlines Control Their Distribution Channels?–RyanAir v. Booking (Guest Blog Post)
by Kieran McCarthy When the Supreme Court decided Van Buren v. United States last summer, many Computer Fraud and Abuse Act experts felt that the decision avoided the worst interpretations…
Section 230 Protects TikTok for “Blackout Challenge” Death, Despite the Algorithms–Anderson v. TikTok
A tragic story: a 10-year old girl saw the Blackout Challenge on TikTok, tried it herself, and died. The mom sued TikTok for design defect and failure to warn claims…
Defendants Get Important FOSTA Win in 9th Circuit–Doe v. Reddit
This is the first federal appellate ruling applying FOSTA. (The DC Circuit evaluated a facial constitutional challenge to FOSTA in Woodhull). It’s an important defense win. If this ruling stands…
My New Article Drops a Truth Bomb on Zauderer and Censorial Efforts to Mandate Editorial Transparency
The battle over online free speech has drifted away from direct Section 230 reform and towards a variety of other regulatory ideas that would instead undermine Section 230’s core principles….
Memes as Judicial Opinions–Courthouse News Service v. Forman
This opinion came out in June, but I just learned about it. In this opinion, a federal judge incorporated a meme into the opinion’s narrative to emphasize a rhetorical point…
If the Word “Emoji” is a Protectable Trademark, What Happens Next?–Emoji GmbH v. Schedule A Defendants
…means the term “emoji” is generic with respect to the dictionary definitions and Emojico’s litigation empire should crumble. The trademark registrations discourage that outcome. Otherwise, “emoji” is at most descriptive…
Facebook’s Website Isn’t Governed by the ADA–Lloyd v. Facebook
This is a standard kitchen-sink pro se lawsuit against Facebook, but it touches a couple of key blog themes that makes it worth covering. Americans With Disabilities Act Lloyd claims…
More Evidence that FOSTA Benefited No One
This is another empirical study into FOSTA’s effects. At the Stanford Trust & Safety conference, I heard a presentation of this paper: Helen Shuxuan Zeng, Brett Danaher, & Michael D….