Cloudflare Defeats Lawsuit Over Nonconsensual Intimate Imagery (NCII) on Facebook–Doe v. Cloudflare
This is a putative class action lawsuit. The named plaintiff provided intimate images to her then-fiance, who (after the breakup) created fake Facebook profiles of the plaintiff and uploaded her intimate images without consent (turning the images into NCII). She…
Private Facebook Group Can Exclude Member–Khan v. ILONCA
The plaintiffs are a husband-wife couple, Khan and Abdulhamid. They are both Muslim and ethnically Middle Eastern. The plaintiffs bought a house in the Island Lake of Novi residential community in suburban Detroit. Halmaghi was the seller’s listing agent. The…
Scammy Ad Lawsuits Keep Vexing the Courts–Huckabee v. Meta
Scammers used Mike Huckabee’s name and image to hawk CBD products in Facebook ads. I’m not in the ad’s target audience, so it blows my mind that anyone would buy anything because Huckabee touted it (or was falsely claimed to)….
Section 230 Doesn’t Apply to Generative AI Enhancements to Ad Copy (But the Plaintiffs Lose Anyway)–Bouck and Suddeth v. Meta
The blog post covers two cases involving scammy ads on Facebook that were part of a pump-and-dump for Chinese penny stocks. The first two rulings came in March. In the Bouck case, the court rejected Facebook’s Section 230 defense because…
Google Search Isn’t a Common Carrier (duh)–Ohio v. Google
Censorship efforts tend to come in fads. Censors get fired up about a new censorship theory and try it out, but the experiment tends to not satisfy them (either because it’s struck down or doesn’t scratch their censorship itch enough)…
Fifth Circuit Keeps Doing Fifth Circuit Things 📉–SEAT v. Paxton
This case involves a Texas statute (Senate Bill 2420, the App Store Accountability Act) requiring app stores to age-authenticate their users and obtain parental consent (among other requirements). I oppose this law and all other online age authentication mandates. The…
Google Defeats “Negligent Digital Architecture” Claim–Starrâ„¢ v. Google
According to her website (sorry, no link love here), Katherine Starrâ„¢ is a 2-time Olympian (she swam on Great Britain’s swim team under the name “Annabelle Cripps“) and a sexual abuse survivor. She now spends a lot of time thinking…
How Often Do Consumers Balk at Doing Online Age Authentication?
In search engine parlance, the “bounce” rate is the percent of searchers who click on a search results link and then immediately hit the back button. High bounce rates usually signal that something has gone wrong. Either the destination website…
Ninth Circuit Panel Goes Out of Its Way to Question Section 230–Doe v. Meta
[I’ve been sitting on this ruling for almost a month because blog posts like this are time-consuming and emotionally draining to write. It may not look it, but this post took about 6 hours to write.] This case involves a…
Section 230 Ends Lawsuit by Twitter Premium Subscriber–Taddeo-Waite v. X
This court summarizes: “At the core of Taddeo-Waite’s complaint is his desire to hold X liable for allegedly maintaining a graphic and upsetting post on its platform, amplifying the reach of that post, and hampering the extent of Taddeo-Waite’s own…