Another Court Says Facebook Isn’t a State Actor–McWaters v. Houston
McWaters was arrested for allegedly sexually abusing a minor, but the grand jury didn’t issue an indictment. He sued various defendants for publicizing the accusations. Among others, he sued Facebook for allegedly engaging in discriminatory content moderation in violation of…
A Twitter Thread on the EARN IT Act
I did a (rare for me) Twitter thread on this topic, which is so crucial that I’m sharing it here as well: On Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee will be marking up the EARN IT Act, which removes Section 230…
Police Department Can Remove Citizen’s Facebook Comments Calling Cops “Pigs”–Sgaggio v. De Young
[Warning: this is an ugly ruling. A court endorses a police department’s censorship of Facebook comments in a garbled opinion that surely reflects the plaintiff’s pro se status.] This case involves Facebook pages run by the police department for the…
Another Anti-Vaxxer Jawboning Lawsuit Fails–ICAN v. YouTube
This is another lawsuit by anti-vaxxers. The “Informed Consent Action Network,” and its founder Del Bigtree, ran afoul of the social media services’ COVID misinformation policies. YouTube and Facebook each repeatedly blocked ICAN’s content items before yanking ICAN’s accounts. ICAN…
2021 Section 230 Year-in-Review
December 2020 ended with Section 230’s existence in jeopardy. Shortly before he insurrected a violent takeover of the U.S. Capitol, lame-duck President Trump demanded Section 230’s repeal. Trump even vetoed raises for our soldiers because Congress didn’t repeal Section 230…
2021 Internet Law Year-in-Review
This is my annual review of the Internet Law highlights of the prior year. I’ve posted a 2021 year-in-review post for emoji law, and I also posted a separate Section 230 year-in-review. NFTs. Much of the NFT activity right now…
DC Circuit Confirms That Congressional Jawboning Isn’t Actionable–AAPS v. Schiff
This is one of many cases, often related to #MAGA or anti-vax, seeking legal recourse for Congressional jawboning of Internet services. More typically, the plaintiff claims Internet services become state actors due to the jawboning directed at them. In contrast,…
New Article: “The Constitutionality of Mandating Editorial Transparency”
I’ve posted a draft of my latest article, “The Constitutionality of Mandating Editorial Transparency,” forthcoming in the Hastings Law Journal later this year. As always, I hope you will check it out. Congress, state legislatures, and federal and state enforcement…
Catching Up on Recent FOSTA Developments (None of Them Good)
The number #1 question I get whenever I discuss FOSTA with folks who aren’t familiar with it: did Congress know what it was doing? Well, the answer is complicated. Many things have gone wrong with FOSTA, and those outcomes were…
The First Amendment Protects Twitter’s Fact-Checking and Account Suspension Decisions–O’Handley v. Padilla
The plaintiff is Rogan O’Handley, a California lawyer with elite credentials (UChicago Law, practice experience as a corporate finance and entertainment attorney) who nevertheless jumped onto the anti-“elites” Trump train 🙄 and embraced Trump’s Big Lie that the 2020 election…