Snapchat Photos Don’t Constitute “Virtual” Physical Presence–People v. White
The defendant was a high school teacher and coach. She sent photos to one of her students, WB, via Snapchat. The court says WB and the defendant never discussed the photos. The court describes the photos as “somewhat risqué” because…
Facebook Defeats Lawsuit Over Alleged ‘Shadowbanning’–De Souza Millan v. Facebook
The term “shadowbanning” does not have a single well-accepted definition. In my Content Moderation Remedies paper, I say: “A shadowban keeps a user’s account active, but only the accountholder can see the content.” However, others sometimes use the term as…
Blogger Loses Copyright Ruling Over Photo…But No Mention of the CC-BY-SA License!–Von Der Au v. Imber
Von Der Au is a professional photographer. The photographer took a photo of the Semperoper opera house in Dresden, Germany. The defendant blogs at MichaelGImberBlog.com and republished the photo in a post. The court claims the “value of a license…
New Article: “Content Moderation Remedies”
I’m excited to share my latest paper, called “Content Moderation Remedies.” I’ve been working on this project 2+ years, and this is the first time I’m sharing the draft publicly. I think many of you will find it interesting, so…
State Legislator Doesn’t Understand That He Works for the Government–Attwood v. Clemons
Florida Rep. Chuck Clemons has a Twitter account. A constituent, Attwood, tweeted at him that he opposed Clemons’ position on a gun reform bill. Clemons felt the tweet was aggressive. Clemons reviewed Attwood’s tweets, saw profane tweets directed at other…
Star Rating at Google Review Isn’t Defamatory–Gursten v. Doe 1
The plaintiff is a lawyer. Doe 2, under the pseudonym “Patrick Anderson,” left a one-star rating for the lawyer (without any explanatory text) on the lawyer’s Google Review page. The plaintiff protested that he never had a client named Patrick…
Newspaper Isn’t State Actor–Plotkin v. Astorian
Plotkin placed a political ad with the Daily Astorian newspaper that allegedly advocated against Holcom and Hilton. The opinion doesn’t explain why Plotkin objected to these candidates, but Plotkin’s frequent letters to the editor give some clues. Even without advertising,…
Section 230 (Mostly) Protects Zoom from Liability for Zoombombing
This is a privacy class action against Zoom. The opinion has several points of interest for privacy practitioners. I’m going to focus only on the court’s discussion of Zoom’s liability for Zoombombing, the COVID-era problem where malefactors crash a Zoom…
Consent Via “Clickwrap” Defeats Privacy Claims–Javier v. Assurance
Javier got a life insurance quote from Assurance. It appears this page contained javascript served from a vendor named ActiveProspect (via a service called “TrustedForm”), which tracks each user on Assurance’s site and records the users’ keystrokes. For Assurance, these…
Blogger’s Photo Republication Isn’t Fair Use–Golden v. Grecco
This case involves a photo of Lucy Lawless as Xena. The TV studio hired Michael Grecco to take the photo and paid him $25k for his services. Grecco retained the photo’s copyright, and he made the photo available for licensing…