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….
Publicity Rights Claim Isn’t Preempted by Section 230–Albert v. Tinder
This is a pro se lawsuit against Match and Tinder for fake dating profiles in the plaintiff’s name. I’m going to focus on the publicity rights claim piece of the lawsuit. Match invoked Section 230. The court says that Match…
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…
School Can Discipline Student for Impersonating Teacher Online, Even if Other Students Added the Worst Content–Kutchinski v. Freeland School District
This case involves a 14 year old student HK (and his friends) who, while off-campus, thought it would be funny to create a fake Instagram profile of his biology teacher, Schmidt. I’ve blogged SO MANY similar cases since 2005 (see…
Another Account Suspension Case Yeeted–Rangel v. Dorsey
Rangel has the Twitter alias “religiouserpico”: Twitter suspended him after he tweeted “HANG THEM ALL” (did God approve that???). He sued pro se. The court yeets his lawsuit. Claim Against Jack Dorsey. “Out of millions of Twitter accounts, it is…
Omegle Denied Section 230 Dismissal–AM v. Omegle
The court summarizes the facts: A.M. was eleven years old in 2014 when Omegle, a “free online chat room that randomly pairs strangers from around the world for one-on-one chats,” paired her with Ryan Fordyce, a man in his late…
Section 230 Doesn’t Create a Cause of Action–Goodman v. Sharp
The underlying dispute involved a copyright and trademark enforcement action against Goodman over a parody/satire video. The court summarizes Goodman’s arguments in this collateral lawsuit: Plaintiff alleges that Defendants abused process and engaged in attorney misconduct when the Academies sued…
Quick Links from the Past Year, Part 7 (Section 230)
* FTC v. Match Group LLC, 2022 WL 877107 (N.D. Tex. March 24, 2022). A rare and surprisingly bad loss for the FTC on Section 230. The FTC alleged that: from 2013 to mid-2018, nonsubscribers were unaware that “as many…
Snapchat Isn’t Liable for a Teacher’s Sexual Predation–Doe v. Snap
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). Among other defendants, the victim sued…