Section 230 Preempts Two More Harassment Lawsuits
Recapping a couple of doomed-from-inception lawsuits. Benedict v. Google LLC, 2024 WL 3427161 (D. Ariz. July 16, 2024) Lance Benedict is a musician. Someone attacked him on the heavy metal website “All That Shreds” (apparently gone now), posting allegedly doctored…
What Happened to Gonzalez v. Google After the SCOTUS Decision?
In the mid-2010s, plaintiffs filed about 20 lawsuits filed around the country seeking to hold social media services liable for allegedly facilitating terrorist attacks. Two of those cases, Gonzalez v. Google and Taamneh v. Twitter, produced Supreme Court rulings last…
Facebook Isn’t Subject to the ADA–Lloyd v. Facebook
Lloyd brought a pro se lawsuit against Facebook raising a myriad of concerns. My prior blog post. The Ninth Circuit easily dismisses most of it in a breezy memorandum opinion, but the contract claim gets revived for a little longer….
What Should Happen When a Schoolteacher Posts Hateful Memes to TikTok?–MacRae v. Mattos
Kari MacRae is a grandmother to four grandkids and a Republican candidate for Massachusetts state senate. During the relevant time period, she was a public school teacher. She maintained a TikTok account at the alias “NanaMacof4.” (Nana is a synonym…
Justice Thomas Hates on Section 230. Again.–Doe v. Snap
I previously described this case: A high school teacher allegedly used Snapchat to groom a sophomore student for a sexual relationship. (Atypically, the teacher was female and the victim was male, but the genders are irrelevant to this incident). The…
Mississippi’s Age-Authentication Law Declared Unconstitutional–NetChoice v. Fitch
[Note 1: I’m thinking my full analysis of Moody v. NetChoice won’t be ready until next week. I have a lot to say!] [Note 2: This morning, Supreme Court granted cert in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton over Texas’ law…
Statement on the Supreme Court’s Ruling in Moody v. NetChoice
A couple of years ago, Florida and Texas passed “social media censorship” laws. The laws were not subtle–the bill titles literally told the world that the legislatures were censoring social media. From a drafting standpoint, the laws were a mess….
Indiana’s Anti-Online Porn Law “Is Not Close” to Constitutional–Free Speech Coalition v. Rokita
[Note: tomorrow we’ll get the Supreme Court decisions in NetChoice v. Florida and Texas. I’ll be blogging those decisions as fast as I can, so check back here to see if the Internet survived its latest visit to the Supreme…
Heightened Constitutional Scrutiny is Not Required for Content-Based Trademark Registration Laws That Are Viewpoint-Neutral—Vidal v. Elster (Guest Blog Post)
By Lisa Ramsey, Professor of Law, University of San Diego School of Law The Supreme Court held in Elster that Section 2(c) is consistent with the First Amendment, but the Justices disagree on how to evaluate the constitutionality of trademark…
Plaintiffs Lack Standing to Sue Over Government Jawboning When Their Evidence is Based on Vibes–Murthy v. Missouri
In a well-functioning society, governments and the private sector will engage in an ongoing dialogue about public welfare issues. Much of this conversation is healthy and productive, as both the government and the private sector have different expertise and different…