County Attorney’s Deletion of Constituent’s Facebook Comment May Violate First Amendment
Governments have embraced social media with zeal, from politicians and police departments taking to Twitter, to cities releasing apps designed for citizens to report potholes. A direct and instant communication link between the citizenry, and those governing it, can only be…
State Sup. Ct. Affirms Harassment and Breach of Peace Conviction for Posting Pages from Diary to Facebook
I blogged about this case a few years ago at the appeals court stage. (“Conviction for Posting Pages From Teenager’s Diary Via Mail and Facebook Partially Reversed“.) In a nutshell, the defendant was accused of taking, without permission, pages from…
North Carolina State Supreme Court Strikes Down Cyberbullying Statute
Dillion Price, the putative victim, was the subject of Facebook discussions by his high school peers. A classmate of Price’s posted a screenshot of a sexually themed text message Price allegedly sent him. Commentary ensued, and defendant Robert Bishop commented…
‘Badass Lawyer’ Loses Lawsuit Over Parody Twitter Account–Levitt v. Felton
This is an awesome parody account/First Amendment case. Todd Levitt is a self-described “badass lawyer” (this description comes from his since-deleted Twitter account) and an adjunct instructor at Central Michigan University (CMU). His Twitter account looked interesting, to say the…
Will the Spokeo v. Robins Supreme Court Ruling Favor Plaintiffs Or Defendants? Uh…
The Supreme Court issued its opinion in Spokeo v. Robins. A six Justice majority reversed the Ninth Circuit’s decision on the basis that the Ninth Circuit did not sufficiently consider whether Mr. Robins’s alleged harms were “concrete.” On the question…
Judge Scolds Litigant For Making Facebook Account “Private” During Litigation–Thurmond v. Bowman
This is a social media evidence ruling. Plaintiff filed a Fair Housing Act lawsuit alleging that a prospective landlord decline to rent an apartment after learning that two of plaintiff’s children would be living with her. The lease denial allegedly…
FTC Wins Deception Case Over Faux User-Generated Content–Fanning v. FTC
John Fanning challenged the FTC findings that the website he developed, named Jerk.com, materially misrepresented its attributes. On appeal, the First Circuit affirms. Jerk.com resembled Ripoff Report, but for people. The court’s description of the site and its offerings are…
Facebook Gets Bad Ruling In Face-Scanning Privacy Case–In re Facebook Biometric Information Privacy Litigation
The plaintiffs allege Facebook’s face-scanning functionality (that underlies its “tag suggestion” feature) violates the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act. Several lawsuits were originally filed in Illinois, but the parties agreed to transfer the cases to the Northern District of California,…
512 Safe Harbor Applies to Content Submitted By Independent Contractors–BWP v. Examiner
BWP owns the rights to various celebrity photos. Examiner.com is a “entertainment, news and lifestyle network” that relies on content submitted by independent contractors confusingly called “examiners.” The Examiner’s written agreement specifies that “the examiners” are contractors, not employees. The…
Important and Troubling Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA) Ruling From First Circuit–Yershov v. Gannett
This is a Video Privacy Protection Act case alleging that Gannett, the owner of USA Today, improperly disclosed personally identifiable information to Adobe. Adobe offers analytics services to its clients by collecting user information and building user profiles. As alleged…