Another Government Impermissibly Censors Constituents on Facebook–Robinson v. Hunt County
This lawsuit alleges censorship by the administrators of the Hunt County Sheriff’s Office Facebook page. The Facebook page invited “input and POSITIVE comments regarding the Hunt County Sheriff’s Office.” The page was intended to discuss “matters of public interest,” but…
Another Appellate Court Rejects “Material Support for Terrorist” Claims Against Social Media Platforms–Crosby v. Twitter
This suit involves the Pulse Nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida. The shooter Mateen claims to have self-radicalized by consuming terrorist content on social media. After the shooting, ISIS claimed responsibility. The plaintiffs didn’t sue Mateen or ISIS but instead sued…
Section 230 Applies to ADA Closed Captioning Claims–National Federation of the Deaf v. Harvard
Harvard publishes a lot of video online, both on servers it operates and through third-party services like YouTube. Only some of that video has “timely, accurate closed captioning.” The National Federation of the Deaf sued Harvard for ADA violations and…
New Paper Announcement: “Copyright’s Memory Hole”
I’m pleased to announce a new paper, “Copyright’s Memory Hole,” co-authored with Northeastern Law professor Jessica Silbey. The paper is still in draft form, and Jessica and I plan to do a major edit to the paper this summer. So…
Important Section 230 Ruling from the Second Circuit–Herrick v. Grindr
This case involves an e-personation attack caused by fake Grindr postings from an ex-boyfriend. The victim claims to have contacted Grindr dozens of times seeking relief, to no avail. The victim sued Grindr for the attack, styling the case as…
March Madness! Court Dismisses Lawsuit Over Massive Cyberattack After Basketball Game Loss–Higgins v. Kentucky Sports Radio
Today’s opinion starts out with an understatement: “This case presents a familiar situation where some sports fanatics overreacted about the outcome of a basketball game.” The game in question is the 2017 “Elite Eight” game between the University of Kentucky and…
Tenth Lawsuit Against Social Media Providers for “Materially Supporting Terrorists” Fails–Sinclair v. Twitter
This is the 10th different case where a judge has rejected allegations that Twitter and other social media services materially support terrorists. As with most of the others, the plaintiffs’ lawyers are Excolo Law and 1-800 LAWFIRM. I’ve blogged the…
Court Tosses Antitrust Claims That Internet Giants Are Biased Against Conservatives–Freedom Watch v. Google
Apologies if I’m not being appropriately empathetic, but I think lawsuits alleging that Internet giants are biased against conservatives are stupid and counterproductive. They are premised on factually unsupportable assertions of bias, and most of these plaintiffs would enthusiastically cheer…
Tweet Containing Question Mark Isn’t Defamatory–Boulger v. Woods
In 2016, the Chicago Tribune published a photo of a woman giving a Nazi salute at a Trump rally. Twitter user @voxday wrongly identified the plaintiff as that woman. Shortly afterwards, actor James Woods, who then had 350,000 twitter users,…
Section 230 Preempts Unfair Competition Law Claim–Taylor v. Twitter
This is an extraordinary opinion. I can’t recall another opinion where the judge so candidly admits that he made both procedural and substantive mistakes. As troubling as those mistakes were, it actually gives me great confidence to see a judge…