Section 230 Doesn’t Protect App Stores That Sell Virtual Chips for Casino Apps–In re Apple App Store
Introduction This case relates to “social casino apps” that simulate casino games like slot machines. Players pay real cash to buy virtual chips, which they can only use in the app, i.e., the player can never cash out their virtual…
Snap’s TOS Fails (Uh Oh)–Doffing v. Facebook
This is one of the dozens of lawsuits alleging that social media services addict kids. Those cases cover the same ground as CA AB 2408, which recently died in the California legislature. The plaintiffs’ lawyers are proceeding in court anyway….
Op-Ed: The Plan to Blow Up the Internet, Ostensibly to Protect Kids Online (Regarding AB 2273)
[I published this anti-AB 2273 op-ed in Capitol Weekly. For more on the problems with AB 2273, see my deep dive and short explainer.] The California Legislature is aggressively pursuing several wide-sweeping and radical proposals to regulate the Internet. One…
California Anti-SLAPP Law Doesn’t Protect Negative Patient Review of Doctor–Premier Brain & Spine v. Cudia
Cudia was a patient of Premier Brain & Spine Institute, Inc., and Edward Rustamzadeh, M.D. In 2019, she reviewed them negatively on Yelp. (This appears to be her Yelp page, and she has an (obviously watered-down) review of the plaintiffs…
Facebook Defeats Jawboning Lawsuit Over COVID Misinformation Removal–Rogalinski v. Meta
Rogalinski made several posts about COVID. Facebook added “missing context” labels to two of them and removed another one. Rogalinski claims that Facebook “censored” him on behalf of the government, so he tries a standard jawboning lawsuit. He gets the…
HuffPost Contributor Isn’t an “Agent,” So Their Content Qualifies for Section 230–KGS v. Huffington Post
This long-running lawsuit relates to publications made in 2015. I previously blogged a related Alabama Supreme Court ruling involving Facebook in 2019. In that post, I summarized the complicated and heart-breaking facts: This case involves an allegedly “predatory” adoption. As…
Retweets ≠ Endorsements (As a Matter of Law)–Flynn v. CNN
Some members of Gen. Michael Flynn’s family sued CNN for implying that they are QAnon followers. The case involves: a report aired by CNN on February 3, 2021, which was entitled “CNN Goes Inside a Gathering of QAnon Followers.” The…
Police Officer’s Racist Memes on a Personal Facebook Page Address “Matters of Public Concern”–Hernandez v. Phoenix
Hernandez was a Phoenix police officer. He posted anti-Muslim memes to his personal Facebook page, which apparently was open to the public. Unusually, the court opinion displays four of Hernandez’s meme posts so we can see exactly what he posted….
A Short Explainer of Why California’s Social Media Addiction Bill (AB 2408) Is Terrible
It’s “burn-down-the-Internet” week on the blog, during which I am recapping three bad California bills that the California legislature is poised to enact. Monday, I covered AB 2273, the Age-Appropriate Design Code. Yesterday, I covered AB587, an editorial transparency law….
A Short Explainer of Why California’s Mandatory Transparency Bill (AB 587) Is Terrible
It’s “burn-down-the-Internet” week on the blog, during which I will recap three bad California bills that the California legislature is poised to enact. Yesterday, I covered AB 2273, the Age-Appropriate Design Code. Today I’m covering AB587, an editorial transparency law…