Another Court Says Section 230 Applies to Retweeting–Holmok v. Burke
Holmok teaches at Lakewood High School. Virag tweeted: “When I was in his engineering class, I had been a part of a few reports filed against him. Some being racial and some being sexist. Nothing was ever done.” Burke retweeted…
Quantifying the Media’s Section 230 Misreporting in 2020
2020 was filled with terrible memories, including the COVID pandemic/shutdown and Trump’s coup attempt, so it’s easy to forget how close we came to losing Section 230. In May 2020, Trump issued his performative executive order purporting to repeal Section…
Quick Links from the Past Year, Part 2 (Copyright)
* Hebenstreit v. Merchants Bank of Indiana, 1:18-cv-00056-JPH-DLP (S.D. Ind. Aug. 26, 2021). A photo of the Indianapolis nighttime skyline has generated $825 in license fees & $135k in settlements. After 3+ yrs of litigation, court awards Bell $200 in…
Uber Isn’t Liable for Rapes Committed By Fake Drivers–Doe 1 v. Uber
Rapists pretended to be Uber drivers, picked up women under false pretenses, and raped them. As the court summarizes, “Jane Does seek to hold Uber liable for failing to warn them about or implement other measures to protect them against…
Supreme Court Restores Injunction Against Texas HB 20!–NetChoice v. Paxton
Yesterday, the Supreme Court granted the emergency application to restore the injunction against HB 20, Texas’ social media censorship law. The vote was 5-4, with Barrett, Breyer, Kavanaugh, Roberts, and Sotomayor voting to reinstate the injunction, and Alito, Gorsuch, Kagan,…
Section 230 Helps Craigslist Defeat Sex Trafficking Case–LH v. Marriott
This is another sex trafficking case against Craigslist. The plaintiff’s position primarily focuses on craigslist’s creation of a section of its platform devoted to “erotic services,” but also points to features like craigslist’s embedded messaging system (which allows for confidential…
Section 230 Helps Salesforce Defeat Sex Trafficking Lawsuit–GG v. Salesforce
This is another lawsuit where the plaintiff claims to have been sex trafficked on Backpage. Backpage used Salesforce as its CRM vendor, so the plaintiff claims Salesforce should be liable for the victimization. I’m aware of two other decisions involving…
Is Google’s Search Engine a “Common Carrier”? (Seriously???)–Ohio ex rel Yost v. Google
This is a crazy case. Ohio AG Yost claims that Google’s search engine is a common carrier and a public utility. Nominally, his goal is to redress Google self-preferencing, but that’s a transparently pretextual excuse to censor search results and…
Big Ruling for Free Speech: Most of Florida’s Social Media Censorship Law (SB 7072) Remains Enjoined–NetChoice v. Attorney General
On Monday, a unanimous three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit issued an important Internet free speech opinion, NetChoice v. Attorney General (a/k/a NetChoice v. Moody). The opinion holds that the key parts of Florida’s social media censorship law (SB 7072)…
Rounding Up the Supreme Court Briefs in NetChoice v. Paxton, the Challenge to Texas HB20’s Social Media Censorship Law
A quick recap: last summer, Texas passed HB20, a #MAGA messaging bill that poses existential threats to the Internet as we know it. NetChoice and CCIA led a lawsuit seeking to enjoin most of it. In December, the federal district…