Section 230 Protects Facebook’s Decision to Cut Off Sketchy App’s API Access–Six4Three v. Facebook
Six4Three developed an app called “Pikinis” (a/k/a “Pikini”), which enabled its users to search Facebook for photos of women in bikinis. 🙄 The app drew upon Facebook’s Graph API. Facebook later shut down Six4Three’s API access for what seemed to…
Verizon and Its Cloud Vendor Must Face Lawsuit for Reporting “CSAM” That Wasn’t – Lawshe v. Verizon (Guest Blog Post)
by guest blogger Riana Pfefferkorn Child sex abuse material, or CSAM, is a longstanding scourge on the Internet. Like the baseball diamond in “Field of Dreams,” if you build a service that allows file transmission or storage, someone will come…
Section 230 Still Applies to Email Forwarding–Motekaitis v. USI
Motekaitis and Kneass worked for USI. There were rumors about the circumstances of their departure. Marsh & McLennan (MMA) was contemplating hiring Motekaitis, but then an email from a USI employee (Kane) about Motekaitis spooked MMA. MMA employees allegedly circulated…
Section 230 Doesn’t Apply to “Refer-a-Friend” Text Message–Jensen v. Capital One
Capital One has a “refer-a-friend” program for its customers. Capital One provides its customers with promotional content and a customer-specific referral URL. Customers can edit the content as they see fit, then send it to their friends (or their enemies…
Court Rejects an Attempt to Create a Common-Law Notice-and-Takedown Scheme–Bogard v. TikTok
The plaintiffs allege they notified YouTube and TikTok about videos that allegedly violated the services’ rules, and the services didn’t take action on those notifications despite making various promises to do so. These arguments revisit well-trodden legal ground, but the…
TikTok Defeats Copyright Lawsuit Over Users’ Uploads–Waterman v. TikTok (Catch-Up Post)
This opinion from October just showed up in my Westlaw alerts. For some reason, it frequently takes Westlaw months to index C.D. Cal. opinions (noticeably longer than opinions from other districts). The plaintiff is a photographer who says her “work…
Ninth Circuit Says Section 230 Preempts “Defective Design” Claims–Doe v. Grindr
I previously summarized this case: Doe created a Grindr account at age 15 (Doe claimed he was 18). He matched with 4 men. “Doe met each man in person and was sexually assaulted and raped.” Three of the men are…
Facebook Compelled to Comply With Washington Political Ad Transparency Law (Catch-Up Post)–State v. Meta
[This opinion from December got stuck in my blogging queue. I’m blogging it now as part of my ongoing efforts to highlight the censorial effects of mandatory editorial transparency laws.] Washington’s Fair Campaign Practices Act “requires Meta to maintain certain…
Recapping Three Social Media Addiction Opinions from Fall (Catch-Up Post)
The Northern District of California issued three opinions, totaling over 150 pages, in rapid succession over 3 weeks last Fall. The opinions came out faster than I could blog them. I’m not going to comprehensively blog each of the opinions,…
“Volitional Conduct” Doctrine Helps DistroKid Defeat Copyright Infringement Claim–White v. DistroKid
White created “beats” and got copyright registrations for them. He orally licensed the beats to Rivers for a 50% royalty and a promise to keep booking live performances for White. Rivers incorporated the beats into her album. White alleges that…