The First Amendment Protects the Marketing Term “Vegan Butter”–Miyoko’s v. Ross
I have been a vegetarian for 35+ years. Over the past 15+ years, I have shifted towards being vegan. I eat virtually 100% vegan in the home and always prefer vegan options when they are available. My embrace of veganism…
Australian Court Says Using a Zipper-Mouth Emoji Can Be Defamatory–Burrows v. Houda
This case involves a Twitter thread discussing the plaintiff’s alleged misconduct as a lawyer. I’m still looking for the original thread (some or all of it appears to be deleted based on my attempts to find it on Twitter) or…
Section 230 Protects Craigslist from Sex Trafficking Claims, Despite FOSTA–JB v. Craigslist
This is an important early judicial interpretation of FOSTA. The court reaches several key conclusions, including that Section 230(c)(1) still preempts state civil claims and Craigslist did not “participate in a venture” with every advertiser of commercial sex. If this…
Message Board Operator Isn’t Liable for Third-Party Posts (DUH)–East Coast Test Prep v. Allnurses
No need to check your watch. It’s still apocalyptic 2020, even though today’s blog post will take you back 15 years to when plaintiffs still hoped to hold message board operators liable for user posts. The caselaw has resoundingly thumped…
Google Defeats Account Termination Case on Section 230 Grounds (Mostly)–Enhanced Athlete v. YouTube
This is another account termination case. The plaintiff ran two YouTube channels with 145k subscribers. The opinion implies that the channels hyped a steroid-like supplement not approved by the FDA (“SARMS”). As usual with cases in this genre, the plaintiff…
Comments on NTIA’s Petition to the FCC Seeking to Destroy Section 230
As requested by the Trump anti-Section 230 Executive Order from May, NTIA submitted a 57 page petition to the FCC asking the FCC to make rules interpreting Section 230. The FCC, in turn, has put the petition out for public…
The EARN IT Act Has Gotten Even More Terrible. So Of Course It’s Moving Forward
[February 8, 2022 update: EARN IT is back and worse than ever. The current draft has an inferior version of the Leahy Amendment. Otherwise, this post remains current.] I previously blogged the EARN IT Act (S.3398) in February and March….
While Our Country Is Engulfed By Urgent Must-Solve Problems, Congress Is Working Hard to Burn Down Section 230
This post will be unusually blunt about my disenchantment with the state of our country, a topic I don’t normally discuss on the blog. Some of you will not like this post. I expect my next post will feel more…
Comments on the Internet Association’s Empirical Study of Section 230 Cases
Elizabeth Banker of the Internet Association has posted “A Review Of Section 230’S Meaning & Application Based On More Than 500 Cases.” This complements Prof. David Ardia’s comprehensive empirical study of Section 230 caselaw from a decade ago. It’s great…
Plaintiff Can’t Use Trump’s Anti-Section 230 EO to Sue Facebook–Gomez v. Zuckenburg
This pro se/in pro per plaintiff sued Facebook because he couldn’t log into his account or open a new one. The plaintiff claimed Facebook violated Trump’s anti-Section 230 executive order, EO 13295, Preventing Online Censorship, 85 Fed. Reg. 34079 (May…