A Takedown of the Take It Down Act
By guest blogger Prof. Jess Miers (with additional comments from Eric) Two things can be true: Non-consensual intimate imagery (NCII) is a serious and gendered harm. And, the ‘Tools to Address Known Exploitation by Immobilizing Technological Deepfakes on Websites and…
Amazon Isn’t Liable for Merchant’s Display of Bogus Contact Info–Hillman v. Amazon
Hillman says that an Amazon merchant, Cozy Castle Furniture, mistakenly displayed Hillman’s contact information on its page as if it were the merchant’s contact info. As a result, Hillman says she got hundreds of complaints per day about the furniture…
What is a “Social Media Platform”?–NetChoice v. Uthmeier
This is the post-SCOTUS remand of Moody v. NetChoice. To dispose of various motions, the court must construe the statutory term “social media platform.” Florida’s statutory definition: “Social media platform” means any information service, system, Internet search engine, or access…
ChatGPT Defeats Defamation Lawsuit Over Hallucination–Walters v. OpenAI
Mark Walters “is a nationally prominent radio show host who hosts two nationally syndicated radio programs and identifies himself as ”the loudest voice in America fighting for gun rights.”” Riehl is a journalist. Both Walters and Riehl are associated with…
A Roundup of Recent Section 230 Decisions Involving Sex Abuse or CSAM
Another lengthy blog post rounding up cases from the past few months involving CSAM or commercial sex and Section 230/FOSTA. Doe #1 v. MG Freesites, Ltd., 2025 WL 1314179 (N.D. Ala. May 6, 2025) Prior blog posts (1, 2). Previously…
Court Dismisses Lawsuit Over Online Review of a Chicago Dater–D’Ambrosio v. Rajala
The plaintiff in this case is Nikko D’Ambrosio. He recently served time in prison for tax issues. Separately, he brought a lawsuit over the “Are We Dating the Same Guy?” Facebook group, run by Spill the Tea, “where women can…
YouTuber Loses Lawsuit Over Account Suspension–Hall v. YouTube
The court summarizes the facts: In April 2024, Hall became involved in a public feud with another YouTube user, “MoneyBoy Tr3y,” (Tr3y”) which led to the exchange of multiple DMCA takedown notices between the two. Hall alleges that Tr3y submitted…
Addiction Lawsuit Against Character AI Can Proceed–Garcia v. Character Technologies
Online addiction lawsuits are proliferating across the country, a trend that will continue so long as plaintiffs think they can win. This decision largely rejects the defendants’ motion to dismiss, which will induce more plaintiff lawyers to bring more cases….
Video Game Addiction Case Mostly Sent to Arbitration–Orellana v. Roblox (Catch-up Post)
[Introductory note: This case appeared in my alerts recently. It is one of the many video game addiction lawsuits percolating throughout the courts nationwide. I don’t have a census of all of those cases because they aren’t hitting my alerts….
School Board Official Censored Constituent by Blocking Access to Their Social Media Account–Garnier v. O’Connor-Ratcliff
This case involves two PUSD school board members, O’Connor-Ratcliff and Zane, who “used their public Facebook and Twitter pages to post about goings-on at PUSD and their activities as Trustees.” The court summarizes: “In response to the Garniers’ numerous critical…