This case involves a terrible tragedy: genocidal violent attacks on the Rohingya minority in Myanmar at the beginning of the 2010s. The plaintiffs sued Facebook for its role in the attacks, such as its alleged algorithmic turbocharging of rage content posted by its users.

Despite the tragedy, the facts sound like a straightforward Section 230 situation. However, the lower court didn’t rely on Section 230 to dismiss the complaint. Indeed, Section 230 isn’t mentioned a single time in the district court dismissal, part of why I never blogged that opinion. Instead, the district court dismissed the case solely on statute of limitations grounds (“the Court determines plaintiffs’ claims, having been brought in 2021, were filed outside the applicable two-year statute of limitations”) without mentioning Section 230 even once. The panel acknowledges that this case did not present itself to the Ninth Circuit as a Section 230 case: “Because the district court dismissed Plaintiffs’ claims as untimely, it did not reach the Section 230 issue.”

Given that Section 230 is nowhere to be found in the lower court opinion, the Ninth Circuit could have affirmed the lower court on statute of limitations grounds. Or, if it disagreed with that ruling, it could have reversed the lower court’s ruling and remanded the case to the lower court to evaluate other aspects of the case, such as Section 230.

This panel did neither. The Ninth Circuit panel’s opinion doesn’t engage with the statute of limitations issue at all, i.e., it doesn’t indicate if the lower court was right or wrong on that topic. Instead, the Ninth Circuit panel requested the parties file supplemental briefings on Section 230 grounds (remember, the plaintiffs couldn’t initially appeal on Section 230 grounds because the lower court didn’t mention Section 230 at all) and then conducted its own de novo application of Section 230 without any guidance at all from the lower court.

In other words, the Ninth Circuit panel didn’t have to discuss Section 230. IT WENT OUT OF ITS WAY TO DO SO. The panel then raised Section 230 on its own initiative and then criticized Section 230’s application as a problem–even though Section 230 didn’t dictate the outcome at the lower court. The panel’s issue-seeking is a blazing red flag of judicial activism.

(Also, the panel opinion isn’t very transparent about why it chose to discuss only Section 230 and entirely ignore the lower court’s statute of limitations ruling. It treats Section 230 as a critical-path item without disclosing that the panel went off-road to address it. The panel disingenuously says “Meta renews its Section 230 arguments on appeal,” which is because the Ninth Circuit requested supplemental briefings on 230).

* * *

The plaintiffs argued that Myanmar law, which doesn’t contain Section 230 immunity, should govern instead of US law. The panel rejects this argument:

The United States’ interest in applying Section 230 is clear. Imposing liability on Meta for its actions as a publisher would frustrate Section 230’s purpose of “promot[ing] the continued development of the Internet and other interactive computer services.”…

Myanmar’s interest in protecting its citizens from harmful attacks and misinformation on Facebook, while real, is insufficiently incorporated into the positive law of the country. Myanmar’s interest therefore does not predominate. For these reasons, even if we could or should consider Myanmar law, Section 230 applies

I am not a conflicts-of-laws expert, so I don’t know if the court’s methodology or conclusion is unusual. The fact that Section 230 protects a U.S. company being sued in the U.S. seems intuitive to me, even if the plaintiffs are foreigners and the offline harms took place in a foreign country. For more on Section 230’s extraterritorial application, see Prof. Chander’s paper.

In his self-concurrence (discussed further below), Judge Nelson says this part of the panel opinion (which he wrote) wasn’t necessary because Section 230 is a federal law, so it preempts any of California’s choice-of-law provisions. He has nine citations to the Federalist papers in this section, so he’s still living in the eighties (the 1780s).

* * *

The panel says that Section 230 applies to the plaintiffs’ claims, despite the plaintiffs’ invocation of the standard workaround arguments.

The panel says:

Plaintiffs characterize Meta’s duty as one of product design—that Meta should not have built Facebook in a way that boosted incitements to violence. Still, the alleged defects relate to Facebook’s core design as a publishing platform, particularly how Facebook promoted or downplayed third-party posts using algorithms. Under our case law, matching users with content is publishing conduct, even when the user has not requested the content. [cites to Doe v. Grindr, Dyroff, Carafano, Barnes]

This is a powerful statement: “matching users with content is publishing conduct.” This reinforces that Section 230 should not just apply to the substance of third-party content, but it should also apply to decisions about how to present that third-party content. It reminds us that “product design” choices by speech venues are synonymous with editorial decision-making, so “product design” claims against speech venues should implicate Section 230.

The plaintiffs tried several arguments to advance its design defects theories:

• “Meta did not do enough to screen and moderate content” => “Asking a platform
  to monitor and review third-party content goes to Section 230’s core.”
• Trying to fit into Doe v. Twitter’s “reporting infrastructure” exception, the plaintiffs highlighted that Facebook lacked a reporting function in the native language. =>  “Plaintiffs mentioned the alleged English-language reporting issues only once in their opening brief. Plaintiffs did not discuss the effect of Section 230 on their reporting infrastructure theory in their reply brief. Plaintiffs have forfeited any argument about their reporting infrastructure theory.”
• “Facebook’s promotion of posts is inextricably (even circularly) linked to the “social rewards” reflecting third-party engagement.” => “The encouragement provided by social rewards ultimately depends on third-party engagement and content. This dynamic is true even though Plaintiffs try to frame the issue as a matter of product design….Calling Facebook a “product” rather than a publication platform only obscures the point that Meta “published user-generated speech that was harmful” to Plaintiffs.”

A reminder: just because a service adopts a term with potential legal significance like “product” doesn’t mean the service has made an admission against its interest. See the Prager U v. YouTube case and its discussion of “public forum.”

The plaintiffs also tried the Anderson v. TikTok argument, i.e., the algorithm is Facebook’s first-party content. The court responds: “Facebook’s promotion of engagement-driven content through the 2009 recommendation algorithm must be characterized as recommending and matching conduct. We have already decided that such conduct is the work of publishers, rather than a platform’s own content or messaging.”

The panel also discusses the Roommates.com exceptions, saying:

The system of social rewards that Plaintiffs complain of is, “on [its] face, neutral.” There is no plausible allegation in the complaint that the Facebook algorithm specifically treated anti-Rohingya content differently than any other third-party content. What’s more, nothing in the complaint plausibly alleges that Meta singled out or selected violence-prone users to post violent content….

Even if the Facebook algorithm and system of third-party feedback and “social rewards” encouraged the posting of content, nothing about the platform’s design contributed to what made those posts illegal or actionable….

the algorithm does not change our calculus or count as a material contribution.

The plaintiffs also tried the decades-old argument that 230 only protects publishers, not distributors. Citing Calise, the panel replies:

This is a distinction without a difference. We have expanded Section 230 and “discarded the longstanding distinction between ‘publisher’ liability and ‘distributor’ liability” that existed at common law.

The panel concludes:

Meta created Facebook, an interactive computer service. That service recommended content to users to maximize engagement. Under our precedent, that is publishing conduct that does not materially contribute to or develop the underlying content.

Plaintiffs believe that Facebook’s design, coupled with the darker elements of human nature, caused real-world harm. But Section 230, as we have interpreted it, bars their claims, and we cannot hold Meta “responsible for the unfortunate realities of human nature.”

* * *

If the panel stopped there, the panel opinion would be what I consider to be a fairly straight-down-the-middle Section 230 opinion. The plaintiffs generally tried routine “product design” and “but the algorithms” arguments, which the Ninth Circuit has repeatedly rejected and rejects again. The case involves tragic facts, but the requested redress is outside the law’s boundaries. The ruling also casts significant doubt on the social media addiction rulings regarding Section 230 in several ways.

However…at the end of the panel opinion, the judges don’t stop talking. All three judges express support for en banc review of Section 230.

Judges Berzon and Fletcher’s Concurrence

This concurrence starts by saying that this ruling is a textbook Section 230 case:

We are bound by Ninth Circuit precedent addressing the scope of section 230 immunity, which requires the conclusion we reach here: The plaintiffs claims’ challenging Facebook’s algorithmic design seek to treat Meta “as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider,” so section 230 provides Meta with immunity

However, these judges think there should be an algorithmic exception to Section 230:

I nevertheless continue to think that this Court’s precedent has unduly expanded the scope of section 230 immunity. For the reasons persuasively outlined by Judge Katzmann in his partial dissent in Force v. Facebook, 934 F.3d 53 (2d Cir. 2019), cert. denied, 140 S. Ct. 2761 (2020), and as I stated in my concurrence in Gonzalez v. Google LLC, 2 F.4th 871 (9th Cir. 2021), vacated, 598 U.S. 617 (2023), “if not bound by Circuit precedent I would hold that the term ‘publisher’ under section 230 reaches only traditional activities of publication and distribution—such as deciding whether to publish, withdraw, or alter content—and does not include activities that promote or recommend content or connect content users to each other

The logic flaw ought to be obvious: Judge Berzon believes the “traditional activities of publication and distribution…does not include activities that promote or recommend content or connect content users to each other.” But promoting and recommending content is one of the most central publication functions. Every publication decision is an act of prioritization–it elevates some content for greater attention over all other content that isn’t published. Further, book publishers don’t just publish books and then store them in a warehouse; they go out and promote the availability of the books so people will actually buy and read them.

Further, where Judge Berzon denigrates “connecting content users to each other,” she is using an unilluminating euphemism. Users aren’t just being “connected” to each other for shits and giggles. The connections facilitate the users talking to each other, i.e., AUTHORING AND DISSEMINATING CONTENT to each other. The speech venue’s role in making those connections–so people can communicate their content to each other–is a quintessential act of publishing content. Judge Berzon wants to kick out various activities from Section 230 by using an unnecessarily constricted and misguided definition of what she thinks constitutes “traditional activities of publication and distribution.”

This concurrence keeps digging. It embraces the logic defect that plagued the Anderson v. TikTok court: that Moody v. NetChoice (an opinion that didn’t discuss Section 230 at all) held that “an online platform’s decisions about how to order, organize, or display third-party content are the platform’s ‘expressive choices'” which, in turn, curtails Section 230. Thus:

Moody and Anderson persuasively suggest that algorithmic recommendations are an internet service provider’s first-party speech for purposes of assessing section 230 immunity

This concurrence says Section 230 doesn’t depend on how the algorithm is constructed:

generic, content-based algorithms do not bear any more resemblance to traditional publication than their “advanced”—individualized—counterparts….Whether generated by an “advanced,” “personalized recommendation” algorithm, an “engagement-maximizing” algorithm, or by hand, I understand suggestions and recommendations to be distinct messages presented by social media companies. Those messages cannot be attributed to any third parties and so are not protected by section 230.

I lament again how often people undervalue the curation function of publishers. The decision to publish or reject any individual item of content is obviously a curation function. It is similarly a curation decision to highlight some content items over others. Any efforts to distinguish between the two would inevitably shrink Section 230 down to, at most, an immunity for content hosting, i.e., Dropbox or Google Drive file hosting services. That was never Section 230’s intent, even in the simpler days of 1996. Moody v. NetChoice, which didn’t mention Section 230, did absolutely nothing to change the contours of Section 230.

These concurring judges summarize their position:

Whether soliciting scam advertisements or matching adults with minors on dating apps, this Court’s broad reading of section 230 of the Communications Decency Act permits internet service providers affirmatively to behave indecently, potentially—as alleged in Dryoff [sic] and Grindr—causing serious harm to vulnerable people. In my view, the conduct challenged in these cases stretches far beyond the traditional activities of publication contemplated by section 230

What does it mean for a publisher to “behave indecently”? I have no idea.

These judges conclude with a call for en banc hearing and maybe Supreme Court review:

there is now both an intercircuit conflict and strong tension with a recent Supreme Court case. Moody v. NetChoice and Anderson only underscore the necessity for en banc review of this Court’s precedent addressing section 230. I again—even more emphatically on this go round—urge this Court to reconsider en banc our precedent extending section 230 immunity to recommendation of content and connections to users

I still cannot wrap my head around how anyone agrees with the Anderson v. TikTok decision.

Judge Nelson’s Self-Concurrence

Judge Nelson writes yet another self-concurrence to a panel opinion he also wrote. This is not his first self-concurrence; and self-concurrences have become a bit of a status symbol/fetish among TAFS judges. I assume they think it signals that they are by-the-books adhering to the precedent in the main opinion but would have reached a different conclusion if they weren’t so restrained.

With respect to Section 230, he says “we have overread Section 230, straying from the original public meaning of the statutory text and creating an all-purpose liability shield for internet platforms.” (As I have repeatedly pointed out, Section 230 isn’t an “all-purpose liability shield”). For example:

how does a product liability claim hinge on treating the provider of an interactive computer service as the publisher of third-party content?…Even if a product liability claim might look like publishing third-party content from afar, the duty underlying such a claim is not “identical to publishing or speaking.”

I have no idea what Judge Nelson is talking about. Take, for example, publishing a field guide to mushrooms that misidentifies a poisonous mushroom as safe to eat. If the victim brings a products liability claim over the book’s mischaracterization, how is that claim not “identical” to imposing liability for publishing? What tendentious distinctions about the mechanics of publishing is Judge Nelson trying to make?

Judge Nelson also speculates that the products liability claims “likely fail” under California law because he is “skeptical” that Facebook is a “product.” First, it’s improper to speak specifically about this claim when it could possibly come back to the Ninth Circuit in this very case depending on how the case proceeds. Even worse, the claim wasn’t properly briefed for the Ninth Circuit by the parties.

Second, if he’s right that the claim should fail on its lack of merits, what exactly is the point of trying to fight to preserve the claim? The Ninth Circuit has already done a dozen of these “it’s not 230, but you still lose” switcheroos to plaintiffs, and yet it has not learned anything from that ever-growing process of wasted motion and futility. Judge Neslon says “we need not stretch Section 230 to reject” the products liability claims. In my view, his argument would instead nonsensically stretch Section 230 to preserve what he believes are futile products liability claims.

Judge Nelson also buys into the “but the algorithms” view: “Section 230’s protection of third-party publishing conduct should reach only “traditional” activities of publication and distribution—not every modern activity that bears some remote resemblance to it.” Except that because judges routinely undercount the curatorial functions of publishers, they are actually misperceiving the “traditional” activities of publishers.

To emphasize that Judge Nelson doesn’t understand what publishing means, he says:

Modern recommendation algorithms are opaque, esoteric, and—particularly when artificial intelligence enters the fray—incomprehensible, sometimes even to their own designers. Much of the matchmaking and network creation that modern algorithms engage in does not fit within any fair definition of publishing conduct

If an entity is gathering, organizing, and disseminating content, it is a publisher. Judge Nelson seems to think they are “qualifying” and “disqualifying” ways of organizing and disseminating content. It’s true that we’re now longer in the world of typesetting and ink-driven printing that prevailed during the writing of our Constitution. But the curatorial functions are indistinguishable. Surely Colonial printers would have enthusiastically used automated options if they had been available.

Judge Nelson also apparently agrees with the Anderson v. TikTok approach: “even if algorithms are publishing conduct, the Supreme Court has suggested that they are the publishing of the platforms’ own content…If an algorithm is a distinctive expressive product, then it makes sense that it is a platform’s own content, rather than the content of third parties…. it is unclear why algorithms should be immunized under Section 230 after Moody.” This is so confused. Curating third-party content is called “publishing,” and the curatorial choices don’t change the status of the third-party content as third-party content.

* * *

By not addressing the statute of limitations question at all, the panel leaves open an obvious problem. Assume the Ninth Circuit wipes Section 230 off the books entirely, for this case and all others. The case still lost on statute of limitations grounds, and the Ninth Circuit has never said that was incorrect. As a result, resolving Section 230’s applicability does nothing to resolve this case. The case remains dismissed on statute of limitations grounds until a court of greater authority says otherwise. That makes the panel’s engagement with Section 230 feel gratuitous. The concurrences are like advisory opinions to address some counterfactual hypothetical.

Thus, it was conspicuous how little Judge Berzon and Judge Nelson’s concurrences engaged with the facts of the Rohingya claims–or explain why this case doesn’t actually illustrate the problems they want to discuss. (Judge Nelson addresses this some–he thinks old Facebook algorithms aren’t the right test case for this pet theories). In most respects, the concerns in their concurrences are divorced completely from the case at hand. The case instead became a vehicle for venting their nonbinding views.

As you can imagine, the plaintiffs have already requested en banc review of this case. If the Ninth Circuit takes the case, it will set up a potentially existential battle over what it means to “publish” content, the role and value of publisher curation, and how a Supreme Court pro-free speech opinion that had nothing to do with Section 230 might nevertheless curtail online speech. Expect some turbulent jurisprudential times ahead.

Case Citation: Doe 1 v. Meta Platforms Inc., 2026 WL 1144707 (9th Cir. April 28, 2026)

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In a prior ruling, the court upheld Twitter’s TOS and sent the case from D. Conn. to N.D. Tex. In my prior post, I wrote: “The relocation of the case from Connecticut to N.D. Tex. only delays the inevitable. This case is doomed due to Section 230, among other reasons.” That denouement has now arrived. The court says simply: “§ 230 clearly bars Taddeo-Waite’s claims against X.”

Decision Not to Remove Third-Party Post. “Taddeo-Waite’s claims concerning X’s decision not to remove the anonymous user’s post neatly fall into the scope of § 230 immunity….X’s decision not to remove the anonymous user’s post treat X as the publisher of another’s information.”

Algorithmic Amplification of Third-Party Post (“But the Algorithms”). “§ 230 immunizes X from suit over its decision not to delete another’s post, and whether Taddeo-Waite notified X of the post’s harmful nature is immaterial to X’s § 230 immunity for that conduct.”

Taddeo-Waite highlighted the algorithmic amplification of the third-party post. No matter, same outcome:

Taddeo-Waite contends that X’s application of its algorithm to the anonymous user’s post constitutes the kind of material contribution to that post that can render X a developer and thus an information content provider…these arguments miss that no matter what amplification Taddeo-Waite alleges, this alleged activity has no bearing on the content of the anonymous user’s post…

Taddeo-Waite does not state facts showing how X’s alleged algorithmic amplification of the anonymous user’s post encouraged or contributed to the post’s message. Instead, he only alleges that X broadcast that message once the user had already composed and uploaded it….courts have consistently found that § 230 immunizes web-based defendants from claims that allege harms caused by content recommendation algorithms…

Taddeo-Waite’s claims that derive from X’s algorithmic amplification of a post merely accuse X of exercising the same editorial judgment a publication wields when it decides which writers’ articles to print on the front page and which to print on the back…

X’s algorithm’s role in establishing that reach does not, without more, state a claim against X that can overcome § 230 immunity

As you can see, this judge completely rejects the algorithmic exceptionalism underlying “but the algorithms” arguments. It shouldn’t matter if editorial decision-making is done manually by humans or if humans encode those values into the machines.

X’s Alleged Suppression of His Posts. Taddeo-Waite complained that his posts weren’t getting his desired visibility even though he was a paid X subscriber. Thus, he frames the claim as a contract breach claim. This doesn’t move the court: “it is immaterial that the duty here was contractual in nature. Section 230 does not provide any immunity exception for breach of contract claims.” While I agree with this statement, the Ninth Circuit’s Calise and YOLO cases plainly reach contrary conclusions. This is another example of lower courts deviating from the Ninth Circuit’s 230/promises absolutism.

Having sidestepped the 230-contract interplay, the rest of the case goes quickly:

courts in the Ninth Circuit have routinely held that the plain text of § 230(c)(1) does not foreclose immunity for claims premised on information the plaintiff himself provides…

The approach that courts in the Ninth Circuit have used is persuasive here….the operative question is whether X, the interactive computer service, provided the information at the heart of Taddeo-Waite’s suppression claims. It did not. Until he terminated his account, Taddeo-Waite was an X user and an X poster, and the posts whose suppression he sues over were his own. Because Taddeo-Waite’s claims concerning X’s post suppression concern information provided by “another information content provider,” and because X meets the other two elements of § 230 immunity, X is immune from these claims.

It is mind-blowing to see a Texas court expressly saying it found the Ninth Circuit persuasive. I thought it was a point of immutable Texan independence to knee-jerk reject everything California does, regardless of merit.

In the end, this claim becomes a routine account termination/content removal claim, and it fails like the many dozens preceding it.

Also, I don’t mean to be callous, but I have little sympathy for anyone who subscribed to Twitter’s premium services post-Musk. If you’re paying for greater status in Musk’s petri dish of racism and authoritarianism, I lean towards Team Caveat Emptor. You get what you get and shouldn’t get upset.

(I miss Twitter of old, but I don’t regret not participating in Musk’s X. Find me on Bluesky).

Case Citation: Taddeo-Waite v. X Corp., 2026 WL 1391897 (N.D. Tex. April 23, 2026). This is a report and recommendation by Magistrate Judge Ray, so it’s pending before supervising Judge O’Connor.

Taddeo-Waite is proceeding pro se. He’s a Democratic candidate for Congress, though I wonder about his odds of success.

The post Section 230 Ends Lawsuit by Twitter Premium Subscriber–Taddeo-Waite v. X appeared first on Technology & Marketing Law Blog.

The transcript is a chapter in a remarkable new book entitled “Trust, Safety, and the Internet We Share: Multistakeholder Insights.” The ebook is open access, or you can buy a physical copy. I encourage you to check out the entire book. It has lots of great and unique content. You’ll see that I also contributed to a chapter about the Journal of Online Trust & Safety.

Note that the conversation transcript published in the book chapter is a little shorter than the one I posted to SSRN. The book imposed a tight word count budget, so we had to cut some parts of what I considered the golden master version of the transcript. The main substance is the same in both versions, but the book chapter shed some personality. The SSRN posting is the golden master version, like a director’s cut, so I prefer it!

Some Related Entries

* A Pre-History of the Trust & Safety Professional Association (TSPA)

* “IAPP Content Moderation in 2019” Conference Recap

* Roundup of February’s ‘COMO at Scale Brussels’ Event

* Announcing COMO Brussels, the Fourth Edition of the “Content Moderation at Scale” Conference Series, Feb. 5

* COMO: Content Moderation at Scale Conference Recap

* Roundup of Materials from HTLI’s Content Moderation & Removal Conference

* Conference Announcement: “Content Moderation & Removal at Scale,” SCU, Feb. 2

The post New Book Chapter Tells the TSPA and TSF Origin Stories appeared first on Technology & Marketing Law Blog.

YOLO stopped paying its lawyers and stopped fighting in court, so it defaulted in the case. That makes me wonder who can pay off any judgments against YOLO if YOLO is already gone?

Either way, the plaintiffs are proceeding without any opposition from YOLO. And yet…their case is so unmeritorious that the plaintiffs can’t get an unopposed default judgment. Obviously defective cases are what the Ninth Circuit thought was worth wrecking Section 230 to preserve…?

In the past 2 months, the district court has twice rejected a default judgment:

Bride v. Snap, Inc., 2026 WL 855148 (C.D. Cal. March 16, 2026)

In the March ruling, the court rejects class certification. The court flags numerous problems with class formation:

• if the defendant has defaulted, can a class claim really be adjudicated properly?;
• The class claims 26M users, but the plaintiffs based the numbers partially on vibes;
• the class includes non-bullied users and, remarkably, the alleged bullies;
• the named plaintiff’s suicide-based claim materially differs from other claims of bullying;
• the plaintiff lawyers’ interest in the case seems to be waning (maybe because YOLO is judgment-proof?);
• “What is “bullying” in this context? What are “harassing messages,” “objectionable content,” and “inappropriate usage”? Who are “abusive users”? How severe or frequent does a user’s conduct have to be for Yolo to be required to take action?”; and more.

Substantively, the court questions the claims’ merits:

here are Yolo’s statements that Plaintiffs challenge in this case as fraudulent misrepresentations:

• “YOLO is for positive feedback only. No bullying. If you send harassing messages to our users, your identity will be revealed.”

• “YOLO has no tolerance for objectionable content or abusive users. You’ll be banned for any inappropriate usage.”

• “Be kind, respectful, show compassion with other users, otherwise you will be banned.”

The court is hard pressed to conclude that the TAC adequately alleges that, as to element one, those statements were plausibly false promises to future bullying victims (as opposed to threats to bullies); that, as to element two, Yolo knew that by making these statements it was making false promises to future victims; as to element three, that Yolo intended to induce reliance from future victims that Yolo would take affirmative action if bullying, harassment, inappropriate usage, unkind, disrespectful, or noncompassionate behavior occurred; or, as to element four, that that any reliance Plaintiffs exhibited on these statements as promises that Yolo would take such action was justified.

The court adds: “there is a serious question regarding whether the statements challenged as misrepresentations are puffery.” Yes, claims about on-site safety are often puffery. All of this was obvious from the face of the complaint.

In other words, the district court is flummoxed by the aftermath of the venerable Ninth Circuit Section 230 switcheroo. The Ninth Circuit negated Section 230 for promise-based claims, but the “promises” here were never actually promises and thus could never form the proper basis of a claim. Thus, reviving the case gave false hope to the plaintiffs. The Ninth Circuit has made similar 230 switcheroos at least a dozen times, each time benefiting no one.

The court continues:

Yolo’s First Amendment defense also comes into play here. “Content moderation by social media platforms is generally considered expressive activity and is protected under the First Amendment.”…Consider, for example, a scenario in which this case had proceeded through discovery and Yolo contended that it reviewed some of the messages at issue and had determined that, for whatever reason, those messages did not violate Yolo’s community standards such that they should be taken down. The court’s review of that decision could implicate the First Amendment.

I have raised the same First Amendment concerns for many other cases against social media, including the social media addiction cases.

The court bottom-lines it:

at this stage of the proceedings, Plaintiffs have presented insufficient legal authority and evidence for the court to find it is appropriate to exercise its discretion to grant the relief Plaintiffs seek.

Bride v. Snap Inc., 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 104978 (C.D. Cal. May 11, 2026)

Following the March ruling, the plaintiffs tried to address the judge’s concerns and sought class certification and summary judgment a second time. Their motion remains unopposed, yet it strikes out a second time.

Class Formation: Typicality

“The new class definition still includes people who were not bullied and the bullies themselves, and Plaintiffs are not typical of these groups or adequate to represent them.”

Also, “the court is concerned is that Ms. Bride would be so preoccupied with a wrongful death claim that she believes she (and she alone) has and its significant associated damages that she would give short shrift to her role, or be distracted in her role, as class representative on the class’s claims for misrepresentation and violation of state consumer protection statutes.”

Class Formation: Commonality/Predominance

Plaintiffs allege Yolo made misrepresentations including, “No bullying. If you send harassing messages to our users, your identity will be revealed,”  and “YOLO has no tolerance for objectionable content or abusive users. You’ll be banned for any inappropriate usage.” But for these statements to be false, a trier of fact would have to consider a host of questions regarding each individual situation: what is “bullying”? What are “harassing messages,” “objectionable content,” and “inappropriate usage”? Who are “abusive users”? How severe or frequent does a user’s conduct have to be for Yolo to be required to take action? These individualized issues go to the heart of Plaintiffs’ misrepresentation claims….

unlike statements like “this moisturizer is oil-free,” or “this supplement promotes healthy joints in dogs,” Yolo’s alleged misrepresentations add a critical predicate clause—one that indicates the representation will be true only in certain circumstances. In other words, “we will ban you” or “we will reveal your identity” might be sufficiently analogous to “this moisturizer is oil-free”; what sets this case apart from a case where a reliance inference might be appropriate is the portion of Yolo’s representations that tells users when (and only when) Yolo’s promises will be true. Those clauses—such as “if you send harassing messages”; “for any inappropriate usage”; and if you are not “kind, respectful” or do not “show compassion with other users”—involve individualized issues that make the reliance inference Plaintiffs seek inappropriate.

The court seems to be saying that if a marketing representation says “if you do X actions, you will get Y result,” it will hinder class formation because the examination of whether an individual plaintiff did the predicate X actions would require individualized determinations.

No Substantive Merit

The “what is not allowed”-type statements in this case are “YOLO has no tolerance for objectionable content or abusive users,” “YOLO is for positive feedback only. No bullying,” and “[b]e kind, respectful, show compassion with other users.” These “statements of policy” that “simply describe what content is allowed on” YOLO cannot “be considered ‘false’ for purposes of Plaintiffs’ claims.” [cite to Bogard v. TikTok]

The “we remove” statements in this case are “[y]ou’ll be banned for any inappropriate usage,” “[i]f you send harassing messages to our users, your identity will be revealed,” and “otherwise you will be banned.” Plaintiffs’ argument that these statements are actionable because they say exactly what Yolo will do is only half the picture—Yolo said they would do those things when something else happened. Here, like Bogard, the vagueness of the critical threshold criteria renders the alleged misrepresentations too vague to be enforced. The Bogard court commented that “[i]t is difficult to imagine standards more subjective than ‘meaningful’ and ‘accurate enough.'” In the court’s view, “inappropriate usage,” “harassing messages,” “bullying,” and being not “kind, respectful, [or] show[ing] compassion with other users,” are equally subjective….

in each of the alleged misrepresentations, it is clear that Yolo is speaking directly to bullies, telling them that if they engage in certain disapproved behavior, “your identity will be revealed” or “you will be banned.” There is no indication that Yolo is speaking to, or making any representation to, anyone else, including the victims of any bullying, harassment, or unkind, disrespectful, or noncompassionate messages. The court finds insufficient factual allegations supporting the notion that Yolo meant for their threats to bullies—made speaking directly to bullies in the “you” voice—to be taken by victims as enforceable promises that they, people to whom Yolo was not speaking, could rely on….

Finally, the court finds insufficiently plausible Plaintiffs’ allegation that Plaintiffs’ reliance on Yolo’s statements—by using the app believing Yolo would protect them on it—was justifiable.

This time, the district court dismisses the case, so it’s now appealable to the Ninth Circuit–where, presumably, the plaintiffs’ filings will remain unopposed by the nonexistent YOLO. Will the plaintiffs appeal? I presume yes. Will the Ninth Circuit recognize how its bad prior ruling exacerbated this mess?

This case involves many tragedies, including the litigation itself. This lawsuit never should have been brought, and it should not have been revived on appeal. It shows the revictimization inherent in the Ninth Circuit 230 switcheroo. It set up the victims to waste extra time, money, and emotional energy to reach the always inevitable conclusion that this particular lawsuit isn’t the proper way to redress the victims’ harms.

The post The YOLO Remand Shows Why the 9th Circuit Should Stop Carving Up Section 230–Bride v. Snap appeared first on Technology & Marketing Law Blog.

an anonymous social media account and online “persona” known as Rain Drops Media (“Rain Drops”) published a defamatory video falsely suggesting that Eizenga was an abusive partner who battered Monroe Capri Bryant (“Bryant”), a young social media influencer. The video in question consists of a collage of other social media posts and clips from Bryant’s live-stream featuring Plaintiff and Bryant together along with a caption that reads, “Woman was punched and assaulted by her boyfriend, she claims he still loves her and insists they’re ‘good’ . . . .” In the video, one of Bryant’s eyes is severely bruised, and Plaintiff can be seen attempting to kiss Bryant on the temple. The video has been viewed roughly four million times on the social media platform X…

WorldStar reposted Rain Drops’ video to its social media accounts (including
Facebook, Instagram, and worldstarhiphop.com) with a slightly modified caption that now read: “CYCLE OF ABUSE: Woman With A Black Eye Goes Live With Boyfriend Who Allegedly Punched Her, Insisting ‘He Loves Me’ And ‘We’re Good’ As He Kisses Her On Camera.” WorldStar also “tagged” the video with three identifiers: (1) “domestic violence,” (2) “Relationships,” and (3) “TikTok.” Plaintiff does not allege that Defendant created or otherwise altered Rain Drops’ video.

WorldStarHipHop defeats the lawsuit per Section 230.

ICS Provider. The court summarizes the general rule: “websites that allow third-party users to submit or upload content are providers of internet computer services.” WorldStarHipHop qualifes:

Plaintiff does not allege that Defendant independently generates any content whatsoever. Rather, Plaintiff alleges that Defendant merely reposted the challenged content without editing the video itself

The court seems to be conflating this factor with the other two. Plus, if WorldStarHipHop is posting to third-party social media like Facebook and Instagram, it might be more accurately characterized as an ICS user, not provider.

Publisher/Speaker Claim. Plaintiff conceded this.

Third-Party Content. The court quickly jumps to the Roommates.com exceptions. It defines the rule as “a website operator may be held liable for third-party content where (1) it “substantively alters” the content and where (2) the substantive alteration is “directly involved in the alleged illegality.”” The court continues:

The bar for “substantive alteration” is high. To start, the test requires something above and beyond the “exercise of a publisher’s traditional editorial functions—such as deciding whether to publish, withdraw, postpone or alter content.” Nor is it enough for a plaintiff to allege that a defendant promoted content through the use or creation of algorithms, tags, video thumbnails, summaries, posts, or animations.

WorldStarHipHop doesn’t meet these standards:

Plaintiff alleges that Defendant made just three changes to Rain Drops’ original video: (1) adding “CYCLE OF ABUSE” to the caption, (2) adding “allegedly” to the caption, and (3) tagging the video with a “domestic abuse” identifier. Those minor changes—none of which altered the video itself—fall far short of the allegations required to make out substantive alteration. [cite to Doe v. Fenix and L.H. v. Marriott.]…The minor, paratextual modifications at issue here fall far short of the more substantial alterations courts found wanting in Fenix Int’l and L.H….

Defendant created nothing. It reposted a preexisting video and adopted a preexisting caption almost word-for-word. The addition of the leading phrase “CYCLE OF ABUSE” and the “domestic violence” tag at most “augment” or “develop[] by inference” the alleged illegality already at issue in the original video.

The court distinguishes the problematic Doe #1 v. MG Freesites ruling, saying that the MG Freesites court excluded CSAM from the definition of “information” (an obviously wrong conclusion); plus “the allegations at play in MG Freesites were much more favorable to the plaintiff than what’s on display here. At most, Plaintiff has alleged that Defendant added the “domestic violence” tag to Rain Drops’ video, but none of the other types of allegations from MG Freesites are present here.”

* * *

I don’t think all courts would treat the WorldStarHipHop-added headline and tags as third-party content. This is a highly confused area of Section 230 jurisprudence. A court could have said that the headline and tags weren’t an integral part of the video (they are metadata) and thus don’t necessarily need the same legal treatment as the video. A court also could say that even small semantic differences between the original headline and video tags and WorldStarHipHop’s headline and tags create new meaning added by WorldStarHipHop.

Also, it’s weird that the court appears to gloss over WorldStarHipHop’s download-and-reupload of the Rain Drop’s video. (The court never says that WorldStarHipHop only links to or embeds the third-party video; that might change the case’s complexion substantially). I have repeatedly blogged about Section 230’s ambiguities from treating downloaded-and-reuploaded content as “information provided by another information content provider.” (See, e.g., the D’Alonzo case 20 years ago). In light of Section 230’s downward trendlines, it’s a little jarring to see the court discuss WorldStarHipHop taking all of these actions itself and still concluding that everything remained third-party content.

(WorldStarHipHop would also raise copyright concerns with an download/reupload, but this plaintiff would not be the right enforcer of that issue).

Case Citation: Eizenga v. MediaLab.Ai Inc., 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 103543 (May 11, 2026). Also of interest: my 2012 post on Scott v. WorldStarHipHop.

The post WorldStarHipHop Gets Section 230 Dismissal–Eizenga v. MediaLab appeared first on Technology & Marketing Law Blog.

Illinois Right of Publicity Act

“D’Ambrosio’s IRPA claims fail because he has not sufficiently alleged that any defendant used his likeness for a commercial purpose.”

With respect to Facebook:

A free-floating profit motive is not enough…Meta did not have a commercial purpose in terms of the IRPA merely because it displayed advertisements for products or services unrelated to the posts on the same page with them.

Doxing Act

This is the Seventh Circuit’s first review of Illinois’ recently enacted Doxing Act. It says there are six elements to the claim:

(1) intentional publication of personally identifiable information; (2) the published information identifies a person without reliance on extrinsic sources; (3) lack of consent to the publication; (4) intent to harm or harass; (5) knowledge or reckless disregard of a reasonable likelihood of death, bodily injury, or stalking to the person whose information is published; and (6) one or more of the listed harms results.

The panel says D’Ambrosio didn’t sufficiently allege Rajala’s scienter about placing him in reasonable fear of death, bodily injury, or stalking:

D’Ambrosio never alleged that he was actually stalked or subjected to bodily injury, nor that anyone attempted to do so. D’Ambrosio identified no past incidents of physical harm or stalking directed against men discussed in the Group. The Group’s rules prohibit sharing screenshots with other people, and its administrators warn users about the risks of confronting men they personally know whom they see posted on it. The allegation that Ms. Rajala made “100,000 unidentified women” become aware of his conduct does not, without more, support an inference that she recklessly disregarded a reasonable likelihood that one of those women would physically harm D’Ambrosio or stalk him. Recall that the purpose of this online group was to help women identify men to avoid.

With respect to the Spill the Tea group operators:

D’Ambrosio’s allegations reasonably support an inference that the STT defendants recklessly encourage users to post sensational content regardless of its potentially tortious nature and that they take measures to prevent the subjects of such posts from becoming aware of their existence and to assist users in avoiding legal responsibility when they cross the line. Notwithstanding efforts to prevent information posted on the Group (and the others nationwide) from leaving the platform, nothing can really stop allegations of anything from rudeness to serious felonies from spreading elsewhere…We find no allegations in this case, however, from which we could reasonably infer that the STT defendants knew of or recklessly disregarded a risk to D’Ambrosio of death, bodily injury, or stalking.

The panel has several (unfair IMO) criticisms fordater accountability boards like Spill the Tea. I wonder if those criticisms could be correlated with the fact that all three judges on the panel were old white men who never navigated the dating world as millennial women?

Though the court rejects this doxing claim, I continue to be extremely nervous about the chilling effects of anti-doxxing statutes. A “reckless disregard” standard gives plaintiffs a lot of room to manufacture controversy out of standard online chatter. Given that thin-skinned individuals–even the US government–take unjustified views of what constitutes doxxing, anti-doxxing statutes are well-positioned to become SLAPP factories.

Defamation

The allegedly defamatory post referenced someone else, not D’Ambrosio, and there was no reason for anyone to believe the post equated the two people. D’Ambrosio also doesn’t make a sufficient showing of reputational damage. As a result, the court says it doesn’t need to address Section 230 because the claim fails for lack of merit. Sidestepping Section 230 is probably for the best in light of the Seventh Circuit’s penchant for overcomplicating its Section 230 analysis.

Sanctions

The panel says “This is a relatively rare appeal in which sanctions appear to be appropriate [because] This appeal was entirely frivolous at least as to each of the Rajalas.” D’Ambrosio sued Rajala’s parents. “Outside of the statement of the case, the Rajalas were mentioned only once in D’Ambrosio’s opening brief.” As for Rajala, the doxxing claim “is replete with fictitious quotations and misstatements of law, matter that cannot form the basis of a non-frivolous appeal.” (More on the hallucinations in a moment). The defamation and false light claims are also unsupportable. The court orders the plaintiff’s lawyers to show cause regarding sanctions.

Misuse of Generative AI

The court says the plaintiffs’ filings, made by lawyers from Trent Law Firm PC, “bear the hallmarks of the misuse of generative artificial intelligence.” The court even notes the firm’s website “boasts of the firm’s extensive incorporation of artificial intelligence into all areas of its representation.” The court refers the matter (plus the frivolous claims) over the Illinois State Bar, but it doesn’t independently sanction any Generative AI misuse. Instead, it makes a short but grandiose statement against Generative AI misuse.

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m increasingly seeing Generative AI misuse in cases where the lawyers display other violations of attorney professionalism, such as the frivolous claims in this case. Maybe the court decided to address the frivolous claims (which appeals courts routinely overlook, at least in terms of sanctions) more aggressively as a backdoor way of redressing their concerns about the Generative AI misuse.

Parting Thoughts

Nikko D’Ambrosio is a multi-time loser: he didn’t seem to be a very good boyfriend, he’s not a good citizen (he committed tax violations), and he’s not a good plaintiff. On the plus side, he did find one perfect match: he found lawyers just as dedicated as he was to Streisand Effect-ing their way to, um, stardom.

Case Citation: D’Ambrosio v. Meta Platforms, Inc., 2026 WL 1361951 (7th Cir. May 15, 2026).

If you have the stomach for it, try to read Trent’s “David v. Goliath” blog post from 2025 about this case. The post has zingers like: “We have a great team—project managers, everything related to AI now. Even Meta can’t beat us.” In retrospect, about that…

The post Court Rejects Lawsuit Over Online Criticisms of a Dater–D’Ambrosio v. Meta appeared first on Technology & Marketing Law Blog.

Tate v. Meta Platforms, Inc., 2026 WL 1146745 (N.D. Cal. April 28, 2026)

This case involves the manosphere enthusiasts the Tate bros, Andrew and Tristian. Instagram terminated six of their accounts for “promoting’ dangerous individuals or organizations’ or for inciting misogyny.” Due to the Tate bros’ legal entanglements in Romania, the bros claimed their deplatforming was connected to “a broader, ideologically motivated campaign, carried out under governmental and corporate pressure, to marginalize dissenting or controversial viewpoints—particularly those of prominent male figures criticizing modern social norms.” The bros sued Meta for a dozen causes of action. Meta defeats the claim based on Section 230.

ICS Provider. “Meta, as Instagram’s operator, is an interactive computer service provider.”

Third-Party Content. “the information at issue (Plaintiffs’ Instagram accounts) was provided by another (Plaintiffs).”

Publisher/Speaker Claim.

Plaintiffs challenge Meta’s decision to terminate Plaintiffs’ Instagram accounts. Meta’s conduct “can be boiled down to deciding whether to exclude material that third parties seek to post online,” and is therefore immune from liability under section 230.

The plaintiffs argued that 230 doesn’t apply to contract claims. Citing Barnes, the court calls their position “unpersuasive”:

The Complaint is replete with allegations challenging Meta’s decision to “deplatform Plaintiffs,” impose a “blanket ban and improper termination” thereby “sever[ing] them from critical commercial tools and millions of followers causing them substantial and irreplaceable financial loss and damage.” Plaintiffs further allege their removal was “not an isolated enforcement action grounded in neutral application of [the] Terms of Use.” So, drawing all reasonable inferences from the Complaint’s allegations in Plaintiffs’ favor, the duty Plaintiffs allege Meta violated derives from Meta’s decision not to publish Plaintiffs’ content online and thus falls squarely within Section 230.

The court also questions if the bros stated any contract breach. “Plaintiffs have not identified any contractual promise that applies to their Instagram accounts, let alone a promise not to terminate their Instagram accounts without prior notice or a promise to provide a right to appeal.”

(Later, with obvious irritation, the court notes that “despite an hour-long oral argument with many minutes of silence while Plaintiffs’ counsel scrolled through all the potentially relevant documents on his computer, Plaintiffs could not identify any provision to support their assertion of a promise of prior notice and appellate rights”).

1983/First Amendment Claim. “Meta is a private actor and thus its conduct constitutes private abridgement of speech to which the First Amendment does not apply.”

In denying leave to amend the complaint, the court emphasizes that this lawsuit wasn’t close at all:

Plaintiffs’ oral argument statements reveal neither they nor their counsel have a factual basis for alleging state actors were working in concert with federal actors and Meta to violate Plaintiffs’ First Amendment rights. Nor do they have a factual basis for alleging Meta violated some contractual promise to provide advance notice prior to terminating Plaintiffs’ Instagram account and not providing appellate rights, let alone a basis for alleging such breach caused $50 million in damages.

Andrew allegedly “allocated 400,000,000 of personal funds to battle Google, Meta, TikTok,” yet all that money didn’t turn the Tate bros into lawmaxxers.

The unsuccessful plaintiffs’ lawyers include Raymond Brenneman of Brenneman Apc and Thomas Maniotis of Equity Legal, PLLC. Maybe the Tate bros would have had more courtroom success if they added some women lawyers to their litigation team.

Ligon v. Meta Platforms Inc., 2026 WL 1146091 (N.D. Cal. April 28, 2026)

This is a very long and detailed opinion in response to a pro se lawsuit.

Ligon was a 2024 Republican candidate for the Georgia state senate. He got 633 votes in the Republican primary. Ballotpedia also says that he survived two lightning strikes. Wowza. It made me wonder what message God may be trying to send to him…?

Ligon placed Facebook ads for his campaign, but Facebook quickly pulled the ads and then permanently suspended his personal and campaign accounts. In a footnote, the court recaps Facebook’s emails to Ligon that suggest a plethora of reasons why his ads may have been pulled, including trademarks, fake images of others, content that put others at risk, bypassing Facebook’s ad verification system, and copyright. Ligon sued Facebook pro se for eight different claims.

Section 230

In a footnote, the court rejects Ligon’s “but the algorithms” attempt to say that his content was Facebook’s first-party content:

Defendant’s “editorial decisions” includes publishing decisions, like whether to remove published material, which are covered by section 230(c)(1) when the content was created by a third-party, but such editorial decisions alone do not constitute content creation. Plaintiff does not allege that any content was made or contributed to by Defendant, except insofar as he alleges that Defendant created the algorithm that “drives” the enforcement of Defendant’s content moderation and that this constitutes Defendant’s own content.  However, Defendant’s use of an algorithm to assist in its publishing functions does not take those actions outside the scope of its conduct as publisher so long as the algorithm is not assisting in the creation of content, which Plaintiff does not allege is the case here

The court turns to the publisher/speaker element. The Tate court applied 230 to Meta’s alleged promises to provide pre-termination notice and an appellate right. This court says those are not publisher/speaker claims:

providing notice and an appeals process, even when related to publishing decisions, is not an activity necessarily derived from the status of publisher, and sending emails or other notices about a user’s content is similarly not a traditional element of publication

As a result, the claims predicated on the failed notice and appellate rights aren’t preempted by 230. From my perspective, both the notice and appellate rights would kick in only if Meta decides not to publish the content, so I think they are inextricably linked to publication decisions. In other words, I agree with the Tate decision and disagree with this one.

Section 230 ultimately applies to the other claims. As a general statement, the court notes that “The Ninth Circuit has consistently held that decisions to publish content, or not publish content, or revoke content from publication, are quintessential publishing functions for which interactive computer services cannot be held liable under section 230(c)(1).” [Cite to Roommates.]

The court evaluates Section 230’s application to each claim in significant detail:

Plaintiff’s Claim One is a constitutional cause of action alleging that Defendant violated his First Amendment rights; his Claims Three and Four are related federal statutory claims for conspiracy to violate his civil rights and failure to prevent the conspiracy. These claims are based squarely on Defendant’s decision to remove and suspend Plaintiff’s content. The First Amendment claim is based solely on Defendant’s publishing conduct inherent to its status as publisher and remedy would require it to undertake further publishing activity by reactivating or reposting Plaintiff’s content. The conspiracy claim is essentially an allegation that Defendant coordinated with other entities to make its publishing decisions, and the tools Defendant chooses to use when making publication decisions—including potential consultation with other actors—are part of Defendant’s discretion as publisher whether to publish content. Remedy for this claim would also require Defendant to undertake specific publication actions because the alleged outcome and goal of the conspiracy is the removal of Plaintiff’s content. It then follows that the failure to prevent conspiracy claim is merely an allegation that Defendant failed to prevent a particular editorial decision from being made and enacted, whose remedy would also require Defendant to undertake specific publishing actions. It is immaterial that these claims are premised on the removal of Plaintiff’s content for political reasons—Ninth Circuit courts have consistently held that Section 230(c)(1) immunizes the removal of political content. As such, Claims One, Three, and Four are inseparable from Defendant’s status or conduct as publisher and are barred by section 230(c)(1).

[Eric’s note: the court doesn’t address the seemingly obvious problem that a statute can’t override constitutional protections.]

Plaintiff’s Claim Seven is brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1981, alleging that Defendant discriminated against him in the making and enforcement of contracts “by suspending his ads and accounts based on his conservative political viewpoint.” As with the above claims, this claim is based solely on Defendant’s suspension and removal of Plaintiff’s content and profiles, which is essential publishing activity routinely protected by Section 230(c)(1)’s liability limitations….

Plaintiff’s breach of contract claim does not allege that Defendant or any of Defendant’s agents made specific, enforceable promises to him related to the suspension of his content; instead, he relies on the general contractual underpinnings of his use of Defendant’s platforms and payment to Defendant. His statement that Defendant’s acceptance of his payment created a duty to publish his content does not constitute an allegation that Defendant made a specific promise to publish Plaintiff’s content which was intended to supersede its discretion as publisher to make publication decisions. Whether based on an implied contract or a document like the Terms of Service, this type of general contract-based allegation has routinely been found insufficient to overcome section 230’s bar on liability for publishing conduct. As written, Plaintiff’s breach of contract claim is premised solely on Defendant’s decision to suspend his accounts and his advertisements.

[In a footnote, the court adds: “Other courts have gone even further when barring contract claims under section 230(c)(1) to broadly find that contract claims based on the removal of content are inseparable from internet platforms’ status as publishers and are therefore barred. In contrast, still other courts have found that contract claims based on an alleged contractual duty of any kind are not barred by section 230(c)(1).” A shoutout to the Calise and YOLO panels for ratcheting up courts’ confusion on this point.]

Similarly, Plaintiff’s sixth claim for breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing is also barred by section 230(c)(1), insofar as this claim seeks to hold Defendant liable for the suspension of Plaintiff’s accounts and ads, for Defendant’s decision to continue publishing other content while removing Plaintiff’s content, and for the frustration of the contract via Defendant’s removal of Plaintiff’s content. Any implied promise by Defendant to use “good faith” or any general statements in the terms of service/use about its criteria when making editorial decisions like removing content is not the type of specific, directed promise that could take this claim out from the umbrella of section 230(c)(1)….Plaintiff’s allegation that Defendant enacted the suspensions “in bad faith” does not thwart section 230(c)(1) immunity….

Plaintiff’s Claim Eight for intentional infliction of emotional distress is also barred by section 230(c)(1) to the extent that it is based on Defendant’s removal of his content from its platforms. Plaintiff cannot hold Defendant liable for preventing him from accessing its platforms to publish content or removing his content, as this would hold them liable for its quintessential publishing decisions regarding what information may be published and contained on their platforms

The court then also dismisses everything (both the 230-preempted claims and the non-preempted claims) for lack of merit.

Violations of Constitutional Rights

“Plaintiff’s constitutional claims fail because he has not alleged facts showing that Defendant Meta is a state actor for constitutional purposes.”

Contract Breach

“Plaintiff’s claim that Defendant’s acceptance of his payment created an implied contract by which they agreed to run his ads is directly contradicted by the Advertising Standards and terms of service/use, which reserve to Defendant the ability to reject or restrict advertisements “for violation of [its] policies at any time.””

Implied Covenant of Good Faith and Fair Dealing

“Defendant is explicitly allowed under the terms of the contract to reject Plaintiff’s ads for any reason whenever it wants.”

IIED

Plaintiff has not identified any conduct by Defendant beyond the sending of five emails: two of the emails were identical, informing Plaintiff that his accounts or advertisements had been identified as and restricted for using copyrighted music; four of the messages informed Plaintiff of Defendant’s findings upon reviewing the content; and one sent “on behalf of Universal Music Group” included information about the penalties for violations of copyright law and the possibility of a lawsuit. None of this conduct plausibly rises to the level of “outrageous” behavior. There are also no facts alleged to support the contention that Defendant’s conduct was intended to injure or committed with the knowledge that sending such emails was likely to cause extreme emotional distress

Ligon has a better chance of getting and surviving a third lightning strike than winning an account termination/content removal case against Facebook.

* * *

One final point. You may have noted that both plaintiffs in this blog post could be characterized as “right-wing” (I don’t know what qualifies as “conservative” any more). I haven’t crunched the stats, but I believe that “right-wing” plaintiffs are overrepresented in the account termination/content removal genre. Some possible hypotheses about why that could be the case:

• The plaintiffs would argue that it’s because the services are systematically biased against right-wingers.
• There have been numerous studies indicating that right-wingers more frequently post content that transgresses the applicable TOS. Essentially, as civility degrades across our society, right-wingers more frequently embrace content–racism, sexism, violent statements, etc.–that crosses previously set standards for civility.
• Right-wingers are more likely to sue as part of their self-identity as victims and overall feelings of grievance.

I welcome other hypotheses. If anyone want to crunch the data to test my hypothesis, I can help. This could be a good paper topic.

My hypothesis poses some serious challenges to advocates of digital due process requirements. It’s an equity/equality dilemma. We might treat everyone equally with procedural protections for their online speech, but that may not produce equitable results. In practice, people with majority characteristics may be able to weaponize those legal tools to entrench their majority position. See, e.g., Lewis v. Google. If your goal is to raise up disenfranchised voices, watch out for any solution that can be turned around to benefit the majority.

The post Meta Defeats Two More Account Termination/Content Removal Lawsuits appeared first on Technology & Marketing Law Blog.

Also, check out this line from the opinion: “Arkansas cannot sentence speech on the internet to death by a thousand cuts.” To be fair, most legislators would choose to sentence Internet speech to death in one swift, decisive blow if they could.]

* * *

This case involves NetChoice’s Constitutional challenge to Arkansas Act 900 of 2025, one of many Internet censorship laws coming out of Arkansas. I previously blogged about the injunctions against Act  689, the so-called Social Media Safety Act and Act 901. Does the Arkansas legislature do anything other than pass unconstitutional Internet censorship laws?

Act 900 tries to revive Act 689 by amending it after it was enjoined. Not surprisingly, the amendment doesn’t go well. The court preliminarily enjoins Act 900 too.

Who does the law “protect”?

“Act 900 has one particularly noteworthy problem: “users.” Act 900 has three different definitions for relationships a person can have with a platform….The addictive practices provision and the default provisions therefore apply to all Arkansas minors, whether they have a social media account or are merely a website visitor. Worse, the dashboard provision applies only to minor “users,” not account holders.”

This definitional problem is probably the result of a botched amendment, but it’s no less embarrassing. I guess you can’t make a censorship scramble without breaking a few eggs?

Addictive Practices

The addictive practices provision of Act 900 requires platforms to “ensure” that they “do[ ] not engage in practices to evoke any addiction or compulsive behaviors in an Arkansas user who is a minor, including without limitation through notifications, recommended content, artificial sense of accomplishment, or engagement with online bots that appear human.

The judge says this restriction is void for vagueness. Two problems with this language compared to Act 901: (1) “Act 900 is not limited to addiction to the platform itself.” (2) “Act 900 imposes liability on a strict liability basis, while Act 901 imposes liability on a negligence basis….a platform is liable for a practice the evokes addiction in a single child even if it could not have known through the exercise of reasonable care that the practice would have such an effect.”

The anti-addiction provision was coupled with quarterly audit requirements that services double-check they aren’t doing anything addictive. “This requirement is even more expansive with respect to what platforms must audit for—not just full-fledged “addiction,” but “addiction-driven behavior” caused by the platform—again, whether that behavior is on- or off-platform.”

Default Provisions

social media platforms must also “[e]nsure that, by default:” (1) “[n]otifications to an Arkansas user who is a minor, other than safety or privacy-related alerts, are ceased between the hours of 10:00 p.m. central standard time (CST) and 6:00 a.m. central standard time (CST) and allow a parent or guardian to modify this setting”; and (2) “[p]rivacy and safety settings for an Arkansas user who is a minor on a covered social media platform provides the most protective level of control for privacy and safety offered by the covered social media platform.” The Court assumes that the content-based exception to the notifications default for “safety or privacy-related alerts” is severable, so strict scrutiny does not apply to the remainder

The court sees the notification provisions as time-place-manner restrictions. “The State has a significant interest in ensuring minors get enough sleep, and this interest is unrelated to the suppression of free expression.”

The court nevertheless gets stuck on the lack of tailoring. “The notifications default applies to “Arkansas users”— account holders and platform visitors alike. It seems to the Court that platforms would therefore have to silence notifications between 10 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. for everyone in Arkansas unless they have become an age-verified adult account holder.”

The court also questions the parent override because “parents are part of the problem. If parents wanted to prevent their children’s sleep from being disrupted by late-night notifications, they have a readily available, free, no-tech solution already at their disposal: taking devices away at night.” This leads to a zinger:

The State has provided no evidence that parents lack the tools to assert their authority in this domain, so it appears unlikely that the State’s deferential approach to restricting nighttime notifications will actually serve its stated interest in ensuring minors get enough sleep. This “is not how one addresses a serious social problem.”

Thus, the notifications restriction “burdens platforms’ speech by silencing them for a third of the day without any indication that the burden will reduce nighttime social media use or otherwise serve the State’s asserted interest at all.”

[I don’t love the court’s methodology here. The main problem isn’t the ineffectiveness of the notification time restrictions; it’s that notifications are an integral part of the services’ editorial expression, i.e., how to communicate with their audiences. Meanwhile, states should be able to empower parents to make choices for their children, even if many parents choose not to restrict their children. The true problems lie elsewhere. For example, in my Segregate-and-Suppress paper, I identify functionally unsolvable problems with giving parents the right to decide how the children use the Internet.]

As for the heightened privacy settings requirement, the court says it’s not a time-place-manner restriction. Instead, the required settings “all restrict platforms’ ability to disseminate minors’ speech and to disseminate speech to minors and therefore implicate the First Amendment.” The court says the provision has to satisfy intermediate scrutiny.

The court says “the privacy default says nothing about who can change these settings, leaving the Court to conclude that, because the Act imposes a mere “default,” anyone—parent or child—can opt for less restrictive settings.” As a result, it’s not a parental control mechanism. The children’s agency over their own settings makes the provision “wildly underinclusive.” (Again, giving children agency may be a better approach than the alternative).

The court also has problems with the provision’s sweep:

Act 900 has a broad definition of “social media platform” that sweeps in websites like Nextdoor and Pinterest which are unlikely to be the site of sexual exploitation, burdening minors’ ability to speak and be spoken to on those platforms and burdening platforms’ ability to disseminate minors’ speech.

Thus, the court concludes:

the law, in effect, allows children to decide whether they need protection from sexual exploitation online because they are free to depart from the protective default. As Defendants’ evidence shows, teenagers’ developing brains make them less likely than adults to appreciate the risks associated with, for example, making their profiles public. Like the notification default, while the burdens imposed by the privacy default may be slight, they do not appear likely to serve the State’s asserted interest at all. Imposing small burdens on vast quantities of speech for no appreciable benefit is not consistent with the First Amendment. Arkansas cannot sentence speech on the internet to death by a thousand cuts

Dashboard Provision

Act 900 requires platforms to “[d]evelop an easily accessible online dashboard to allow a parent of a minor user to view and understand his or her child’s use habits.” This dashboard “shall also provide tools for a parent to restrict his or her minor child’s access to the covered social media platform, or logical portions of the covered social media platform.”

The court can’t decide if this is a Zauderer situation, but it doesn’t matter because “this provision is so unduly burdensome that it fails even” the Zauderer standard. A reminder that we desperately and urgently need a complete rethink of everything associated with Zauderer.

The court gets stuck on the fact that the dashboard only applies to unregistered users. (This appears to be a drafting mistake…? Who knows what the legislature was thinking. They cared more about censorship than making sense.). The court says providing this resource to unregistered users forces services to collect more personal information than they want:

This requirement would force platforms to compile scores of data about minor visitors to their websites, “somehow identify each minor’s parents” to provide dashboard access to them, and follow minors across devices to enforce parental restrictions. Such a requirement is unduly burdensome and seems likely to chill platforms’ dissemination of speech to or from anyone who is not an account holder.

[I would add that all of these problems are inherent in any parental control, supervision, or access provision, not just this particular situation where the legislature illogically extended these rights only to unregistered users.]

Implications

This is a quirky opinion with some logic twists that an appeals court may not agree with. Personally, I wish that courts would strike down laws at their conceptual layer, such as saying that age authentication mandates are always unconstitutional, or efforts to define social media will always be fatally under- and over-inclusive, or parental controls over their children’s online behavior are always mistailored because of the impossibility of authenticating parental status and the risks that parents will weaponize that control in opposition to their children’s interests. (I could go on with other structural problems). This opinion hints at some of these concerns but never reaches these more definitive positions.

Having said that, the court reaches the right place. Essentially, the court makes it impossible for legislatures to push segregate-and-suppress laws because they can never navigate the vagueness and tailoring problems sufficiently. The legislature can read this opinion and try to iterate the law yet again to address the judge’s concern, and they will still fail. Of course, the response of every legislature seems to be: if censorship is on the line, CHALLENGE ACCEPTED.

Case Citation: NetChoice LLC v. Griffin, 5:25-cv-05140-TLB (W.D. Ark. April 20, 2026)

* * *

Blog Posts on Segregate-and-Suppress Obligations

• Too Many Courts Are Letting States Take Wrecking Balls to the Internet (Roundup)
• Texas Judge Enjoins App Store Authentication Law–CCIA and SEAT v. Paxton
• Courts Enjoin Internet Censorship Laws in Louisana and Arkansas
• Challenge to Maryland’s “Kid Code” Survives Motion to Dismiss–NetChoice v. Brown
• My Testimony Against Mandatory Online Age Authentication
• Read the Published Version of My Paper Against Mandatory Online Age Authentication
• Prof. Goldman’s Statement on the Supreme Court’s Demolition of the Internet in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton
• Court Permanently Enjoins Ohio’s Segregate-and-Suppress/Parental Consent Law–NetChoice v. Yost
• Arkansas’ Social Media Safety Act Permanently Enjoined—NetChoice v. Griffin
• Why I Emphatically Oppose Online Age Verification Mandates
• California’s Age-Appropriate Design Code (AADC) Is Completely Unconstitutional (Multiple Ways)–NetChoice v. Bonta
• Another Conflict Between Privacy Laws and Age Authentication–Murphy v. Confirm ID
• Recapping Three Social Media Addiction Opinions from Fall (Catch-Up Post)
• District Court Blocks More of Texas’ Segregate-and-Suppress Law (HB 18)–SEAT v. Paxton
• Comments on the Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton SCOTUS Oral Arguments on Mandatory Online Age “Verification”
• California’s “Protecting Our Kids from Social Media Addiction Act” Is Partially Unconstitutional…But Other Parts Are Green-Lighted–NetChoice v. Bonta
• Section 230 Defeats Underage User’s Lawsuit Against Grindr–Doll v. Pelphrey
• Five Decisions Illustrate How Section 230 Is Fading Fast
• Internet Law Professors Submit a SCOTUS Amicus Brief on Online Age Authentication–Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton
• Court Enjoins the Utah “Minor Protection in Social Media Act”–NetChoice v. Reyes
• Another Texas Online Censorship Law Partially Enjoined–CCIA v. Paxton
• When It Comes to Section 230, the Ninth Circuit is a Chaos Agent–Estate of Bride v. YOLO
• Court Dismisses School Districts’ Lawsuits Over Social Media “Addiction”–In re Social Media Cases
• Ninth Circuit Strikes Down Key Part of the CA Age-Appropriate Design Code (the Rest is TBD)–NetChoice v. Bonta
• Mississippi’s Age-Authentication Law Declared Unconstitutional–NetChoice v. Fitch
• Indiana’s Anti-Online Porn Law “Is Not Close” to Constitutional–Free Speech Coalition v. Rokita
• Fifth Circuit Once Again Disregards Supreme Court Precedent and Mangles Section 230–Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton
• Snapchat Isn’t Liable for Offline Sexual Abuse–VV v. Meta
• 2023 Quick Links: Censorship
• Court Enjoins Ohio’s Law Requiring Parental Approval for Children’s Social Media Accounts–NetChoice v. Yost
• Many Fifth Circuit Judges Hope to Eviscerate Section 230–Doe v. Snap
• Louisiana’s Age Authentication Mandate Avoids Constitutional Scrutiny Using a Legislative Drafting Trick–Free Speech Coalition v. LeBlanc
• Section 230 Once Again Applies to Claims Over Offline Sexual Abuse–Doe v. Grindr
• Comments on the Ruling Declaring California’s Age-Appropriate Design Code (AADC) Unconstitutional–NetChoice v. Bonta
• Two Separate Courts Reiterate That Online Age Authentication Mandates Are Unconstitutional
• Minnesota’s Attempt to Copy California’s Constitutionally Defective Age Appropriate Design Code is an Utter Fail (Guest Blog Post)
• Do Mandatory Age Verification Laws Conflict with Biometric Privacy Laws?–Kuklinski v. Binance
• Why I Think California’s Age-Appropriate Design Code (AADC) Is Unconstitutional
• An Interview Regarding AB 2273/the California Age-Appropriate Design Code (AADC)
• Op-Ed: The Plan to Blow Up the Internet, Ostensibly to Protect Kids Online (Regarding AB 2273)
• A Short Explainer of Why California’s Social Media Addiction Bill (AB 2408) Is Terrible
• A Short Explainer of How California’s Age-Appropriate Design Code Bill (AB2273) Would Break the Internet
• Is the California Legislature Addicted to Performative Election-Year Stunts That Threaten the Internet? (Comments on AB2408)
• Omegle Denied Section 230 Dismissal–AM v. Omegle
• Snapchat Isn’t Liable for a Teacher’s Sexual Predation–Doe v. Snap
• Will California Eliminate Anonymous Web Browsing? (Comments on CA AB 2273, The Age-Appropriate Design Code Act)
• Minnesota Wants to Ban Under-18s From User-Generated Content Services
• California’s Latest Effort To Keep Some Ads From Reaching Kids Is Misguided And Unconstitutional (Forbes Cross-Post)
• Backpage Gets Important 47 USC 230 Win Against Washington Law Trying to Combat Online Prostitution Ads (Forbes Cross-Post & More)
• Backpage Gets TRO Against Washington Law Attempting to Bypass Section 230–Backpage v. McKenna
• MySpace Wins Another 47 USC 230 Case Over Sexual Assaults of Users–Doe II v. MySpace
• MySpace Gets 230 Win in Fifth Circuit–Doe v. MySpace
• Website Isn’t Liable When Users Lie About Their Ages–Doe v. SexSearch

The post Court Enjoins Another Arkansas Segregate-and-Suppress Law–NetChoice v. Griffin appeared first on Technology & Marketing Law Blog.

The court starts off with this broad proposition:

Section 230 compels dismissal of claims seeking to hold platforms liable for activity amounting to sexual exploitation of one user by another when the factual predicate is that the two users engaged in messaging using the platform’s service” [cites to Doe v. Grindr, Doe v. MySpace, Doe v. Snap, Doe 1 v. Backpage, Doe II v. MySpace, In re Facebook, LW v. Snap, Doe v. Grindr (S.D. Fla.), Doe v. Kik.]

Negligence

The plaintiff tried the standard set of arguments that Discord was defectively designed because it didn’t adhere to the plaintiff lawyers’ vision of how services should operate:

Plaintiff’s “Negligence” claims seek to impose liability on Discord for (i) designing its messaging service to facilitate harmful private communications; (ii) allowing “unsupervised” messaging between users; (iii) failing to require phone number verification or otherwise “screen users”; (iv) failing to “implement … parent controls” and “parental notifications” that would monitor and supervise messages; (v) failing to remove user profiles and block messages from adults who message teens; (vi) failing to set default safety settings that would block messages between unconnected users; (vii) offering an “open chat function” without sufficient moderation; and (viii) failing to monitor for, report and prevent the use of [its] app[ ] by sexual predators.”

The court says all of those configuration choices are editorial choices protected by Section 230:

These claims each amount to Plaintiff seeking to impose a duty on Discord to monitor, screen, and block Plaintiff’s communications with other Discord users. All of these duties would require Discord to alter or amend how it publishes, monitors, screens, flags, blocks, or removes users’ messages and profiles, including how it offers to its users “neutral tools” that allow users to communicate in different chat forums and formats. [cite to Jones v. Dirty World (6th Circuit)]

Notice how this court implicitly veers away from the social media addiction rulings in California and numerous other precedents saying that design choices can be agnostic about what content they apply to and therefore are not based on third party content.

Strict Liability

The court treats the products liability claim the same as the negligence claim. The plaintiff complained about the following practices:

The Complaint faults Discord for providing a service that “allow[s] children to come into contact with child predators, and asserts that Discord should provide “[e]ffective parental controls” to stop harmful message exchanges; reconfigure features to “block[ ] direct messaging between child and adult users”; block content from “known abusers”; and offer a more restrictive “[c]ontrolled chat” option.

The court responds that these claims “would require Discord to more perfectly screen for and block harmful messages and alter the operation of the neutral tools it provides users to send messages,” which Section 230 does not permit.

Concealment/Failure to Warn

The court says the concealment/failure to warn claims also second-guess Discord’s editorial decisions. The court says:

Courts cannot accept attempts to repackage what is in actuality “publisher” actions as “torts of omission” to evade Section 230

Thus, “these allegations appear to be simply a restatement of Plaintiff’s negligence claims and product liability claims already found to be barred by Section 230. Put another way, the only way that Discord could address these aspects of its platform would be “to take certain moderation actions” that would eliminate the alleged discrepancy between Discord’s description of its moderation efforts and the “reality” of its moderation – again, “publishing” actions.” [cite to Bride v. YOLO]

Failing to warn users that Discord is a “dangerous” app “is at root a claim based on “publication” choices related to moderation efforts, which fall within the immunity provided by Section 230.” Cites to Bride v. YOLO, Doe v. Grindr, Wozniak v. YouTube.

The court also questions if there was any actual omission: “Discord does disclose and issue transparency reports that – as is the case with any platform that handles an immensely high volume of messages each day – do show that its content moderation efforts are imperfect.”

Misrepresentation

Plaintiff’s claims seek to hold Discord liable for alleged “misrepresentations” by failing to conform its content moderation standards – based on what amounts to its general “aspirational” standards of seeking to provide a platform “safe for minors” – to a level defined by Plaintiff. [The Grindr court distinguished] claims based on actual specific and defined contractual promises [from] general aspirational goals regarding platform content moderation

The litigation over “safe” content moderation is decades-old and completely confused.

Third-Party Content

Nowhere in Plaintiff’s Complaint does it accuse Discord of creating the offensive messaging, but rather the Complaint seeks to hold Discord liable for facilitating – or failing to moderate – sexually exploitative offensive messaging created by others. The fact that Discord may have provided the “tools” by which Plaintiff and her alleged abusers exchanged messages, to “carry out what may be unlawful or illicit” does not make Discord a “content provider,” but rather treats Discord as a “publisher” of (offensive) messaging created by third parties.

Implications

A reminder that sexual predation cases involve heartbreaking facts. Section 230 often arises in tragic circumstances.

The Section 230 jurisprudence is coming apart at the seams, as illustrated by this ruling. I think this court got it right and disagreeing courts got it wrong. However, there is now enough precedent on both sides of every issue to vex everyone. This opinion carefully prioritized appellate rulings, which have largely rejected the design defect workarounds to Section 230. However, many more design defect cases are heading to appellate courts across the country, and any appellate deviation in any one of those cases will tear Section 230 even further apart.

Case Citation: Jane Doe v. Discord Inc., 2026 WL 1067574 (N.D. Ohio April 20, 2026). The complaint.

The post Section 230 Helps Discord Defeat “Defective Design” Claims Regarding Sexual Predation–Jane Doe v. Discord appeared first on Technology & Marketing Law Blog.

If you think the courts always curb these abuses, recall Judge Doughty’s 155 page MAGA screed against the Biden administration’s purported jawboning, “patriotically” issued on July 4, 2023. Judge Doughty claimed he was redressing the “most massive attack against free speech in United States’ history,” only to be badly exposed as a partisan hack/fool when the Supreme Court reviewed those facts.

MAGA culture warriors have repeatedly decried Biden-era jawboning, but far worse behavior from the Trump administration is often just downplayed as no big deal or kakistocrats being kakistocrats. Techdirt covers this duality/hypocrisy. We should not grade the Trump administration’s censorship on some sort of downward-adjusted curve. As this case illustrates, the Trump 2.0 administration has been unstintingly and gleefully censorial, both expressly and using indirect means like jawboning.

* * *

This case involves former-AG Bondi and former-Secretary Kristi Noem. Both of them arrogantly thought they could successfully navigate having the famously mercurial and unreasonable Trump as a boss. Instead, both of them transactionally served as Trump’s use-and-discard useful idiots and have been shitcanned.

This case is part of the detritus of shadow president Stephen Miller’s highly unpopular deployment of ICE as a weapon against the American public. In response, truly patriotic Americans self-organized to fight back against ICE’s abuses, including providing online tools to track, document, and push back against ICE.

“Plaintiff Kassandra Rosado created ‘ICE Sightings – Chicagoland’ in January 2025 as a
Facebook group for people to post videos and information regarding ICE activity.” LARPing as a concerned American , Laura Loomer (a well-known figure on this blog) publicly flagged the group for Bondi and Noem. Bondi responded that the DOJ got Facebook to remove the group:

Noem responded almost identically:

[Another semantic note: like the term “jawboning,” the term “doxxing” is ambiguous and weaponizable. Bondi and Noem falsely claimed that citizens’ efforts to increase the transparency of government activities constituted nefarious or even illegal “doxxing,” when it’s really the kind of power-checking efforts our country was founded on.]

In a second jawboning incident,

Plaintiff Kreisau Group created “Eyes Up” in August 2025 as a phone application for people to post videos and information regarding ICE activity. Around October 2, 2025, Apple removed several apps that shared information regarding ICE activity, including ICEBlock, Red Dot, and Eyes Up. Speaking to Fox News on October 2, Defendant Bondi stated: “We reached out to Apple today demanding they remove the ICEBlock app from their App Store – and Apple did so.” And on October 8 Bondi made a public statement that “we had Apple and Google take down the ICEBlock apps.”

Apple informed Kreisau Group that Apple had removed Eyes Up from the App Store after receiving “information” from “law enforcement” that the app violated Apple’s guidelines. Apple stated that the app violated guideline 1.1.1, which prohibits “defamatory, discriminatory, or mean-spirited content.” But Apple had previously and independently reviewed Eyes Up in August 2025. During that previous review, Eyes Up was already available on its website, and Apple had knowledge of the purpose of Eyes Up, of actual videos available on it, and how it worked.

Traceability

The court is satisfied with the allegations of the federal government’s responsibility for the removals:

First, Facebook had previously reviewed the Chicagoland group, and Apple had previously reviewed Eyes Up. In both cases, Facebook and Apple had determined that the content met their requirements. Second, Facebook and Apple changed their positions and removed the content immediately after Defendants contacted them about it. And third, Defendants made public statements taking credit for the fact that Facebook and Apple had removed the content.

Injunction Merits 

The court says there’s enough evidence to enjoin the censorship:

[Bondi and Noem] reached out to Facebook and Apple and demanded, rather than requested, that Facebook and Apple censor Plaintiff’s speech. See R. 10-4 at 29 (“‘We reached out to Apple today demanding they remove the ICEBlock app from their App Store – and Apple did so,’ Bondi said in a statement to Fox News Digital.”); R. 10-4 at 36 (emphasis added) (Loomer posting on social media that “DOJ source tells me . . . they have contacted Facebook . . . to tell them they need to remove these ICE tracking pages.”); R. 10-4 at 65 (Noem posting on social media that “[p]latforms like Facebook must be PROACTIVE [sic] in stopping the doxxing of our [ICE] law enforcement.”).

Bondi and Noem also intimated that Facebook and Apple may be subject to prosecution for failing to comply with Bondi and Noem’s demands. For example, after stating that we “had Apple and Google take down the ICEBlock apps,” Bondi further stated: “We’re not going to stop at just arresting the violent criminals we can see in the streets.” And in the same social media post where Noem wrote that “[p]latforms like Facebook must be PROACTIVE in stopping the doxxing of our [ICE] law enforcement,” she added: “We will prosecute those who dox our agents to the fullest extent of the law.” Although these statements may not be direct threats to prosecute Facebook and Apple, they are intimations of a threat. And thinly veiled threats such as these constitute sufficient evidence on which Plaintiffs are likely to succeed on their claim. [cite to Bantam Books]

The judge didn’t set the precise terms of the injunction (that will happen soon). However, the judge cannot compel Facebook or Apple to restore ICE Sightings or Eyes Up. Restoring the services is, after all, their editorial prerogative. Indeed, there’s no guarantee the services will be restored. As discussed below, both Facebook and Apple have repeatedly and expressly prioritized their fealty to government censors over serving their audiences. Thus, either way, the government has already won the case by sidelining two ICE accountability tools for many months–and possibly indefinitely. This would have been a good enough reason to fire Bondi and Noem, but oops, Trump already did that for far less legitimate reasons.

Implications

This is not a difficult case legally or factually. The court didn’t need to engage in any nuanced inquiry or explore subtle differences between government requests and coercion. Bondi and Noem wanted the Facebook group and apps gone. They told Facebook and Apple to remove them and coupled that instruction with promises to exercise their enforcement powers. This is a textbook example of censorship via jawboning.

The bigger question is: why did we get such a clean example of jawboning? Typically, government officials would not have made their censorship demands so brazenly; nor would government officials take a very public celebratory victory lap after executing their censorship. Imagine a counterfactual where Bondi and Noem simply posted a thank you to Facebook and Apple for helping ICE out. Would that have changed the outcome?

So why didn’t Bondi and Noem execute their goals more smartly? An Occam’s Razor guess is that they are incompetent. A realpolitik guess is that Bondi and Noem only cared about a single-person audience, Pres. Trump. They needed to very visibly demonstrate their censorship in order for Trump to recognize and appreciate it. An darker guess is that Bondi and Noem didn’t fear any repercussions from abusing their government position. Indeed, other than their shitcanning (which was inevitable from the first day they took the positions), I doubt Bondi or Noem will suffer any personal consequences for any of their misdeeds in office.

While Bondi and Noem (and Stephen Miller and ICE) are the real villains in this story, let’s not overlook Facebook and Apple’s complicity. Facebook and Apple showed zero backbone in the face of Bondi and Noem’s unreasonable demands. The companies willingly served as useful idiots to the censors. Their spinelessness is not new; recall how Apple and Google didn’t do a damn thing to push back against the TikTok ban, even though it stripped away their editorial discretion. Apple and Facebook lack any editorial integrity and have intentionally decided to placate MAGA censors instead. That deserves more condemnation than the court can provide.

Case Citation: Rosado v. Bondi, 2026 WL 104778 (N.D. Ill. April 17, 2026)

BONUS: Along similar lines as the Rosado case, see Oregon v. RFK Jr., 6:25-cv-02409-MTK (D. Ore. April 18, 2026), where the judge unloads on RFK Jr. for threatening to block all federal funding to hospitals if they provided any gender-affirming care. I thought this quote from the judge was really beautiful:

Secretary Kennedy’s unlawful declaration harmed children. This case illustrates that when a leader acts without authority and in the absence of the rule of law, he acts with cruelty.

Selected Jawboning Posts

• COVID Jawboning Lawsuit Dismissed (For Now)–Dressen v. Flaherty
• Section 230 (Still) Applies to Contract Breach Claim–NJCCC v. McAleer
• Facebook Defeats Armslist’s Account Termination Lawsuit–Armslist v. Facebook
• Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Is Breaking Internet Law Faster Than I Can Blog It
• Plaintiffs Lack Standing to Sue Over Government Jawboning When Their Evidence is Based on Vibes–Murthy v. Missouri
• Jawboning Defendants Are 6-for-6 in the Ninth Circuit–Hart v. Facebook
• Another Jawboning Case Fails in the 9th Circuit (But a TAFS Judge Doesn’t Like the Biden Administration)–Rogalinksi v. Meta
• Sixth Circuit Dismisses Online Jawboning Case–Changizi v. DHHS
• “Twitter Files” Don’t Help Revive Jawboning Case–Hart v. Facebook
• Another Jawboning Case Fails in the Ninth Circuit–Kennedy v. Warren
• Government Submissions to a Trusted Flagger Program Aren’t Unconstitutional Jawboning–O’Handley v. Weber
• Ninth Circuit Easily Rejects Another Jawboning Case–Huber v. Biden
• Ninth Circuit Easily Rejects Jawboning Claims Against YouTube–Doe v. Google
• Facebook Defeats Jawboning Lawsuit Over COVID Misinformation Removal–Rogalinski v. Meta
• COVID Skeptics’ Anti-Jawboning Lawsuit Fails–Changizi v. Department of HHS
• Facebook & Twitter Defeat Lawsuit Over Account Terminations of COVID/Mask Skeptic–Hart v. Facebook
• Twitter Defeats Trump’s Deplatforming Lawsuit–Trump v. Twitter
• Section 230 Survives Yet Another Constitutional Challenge–Huber v. Biden
• Another Anti-Vaxxer Jawboning Lawsuit Fails–ICAN v. YouTube
• The First Amendment Protects Twitter’s Fact-Checking and Account Suspension Decisions–O’Handley v. Padilla
• One More Time: Facebook Isn’t a State Actor–Atkinson v. Facebook
• Government Jawboning Doesn’t Turn Internet Services into State Actors–Doe v. Google
• Facebook Defeats Lawsuit By Publishers of Vaccine (Mis?)information–Children’s Health Defense v. Facebook
• Another Must-Carry Lawsuit Against YouTube Fails–Daniels v Alphabet
• Congressional Jawboning of Internet Services Isn’t Actionable–AAPS v. Schiff
• Facebook Isn’t a Constructive Public Trust–Cameron Atkinson v. Facebook
• Section 230 Ends Demonetized YouTuber’s Lawsuit–Lewis v. Google

The post The Federal Government Used Jawboning to Censor ICE Transparency Initiatives–Rosado v. Bondi appeared first on Technology & Marketing Law Blog.