Advertiser Can't Force Facebook to Run Sex Product Ads--Strachan v. Facebook

Advertiser Can’t Force Facebook to Run Sex Product Ads–Strachan v. Facebook

Strachan created various Facebook pages and an advertising account. “In April 2020, Facebook cancelled Strachan’s advertising account and removed his advertising content from the platform.” Allegedly, Facebook “determined he was selling ‘Adult Services and/or Products,’ i.e., ‘sex products.’” To make…

Should Copyright Preemption Moot Anti-Scraping TOS Terms? (Guest Blog Post)

by guest blogger Kieran McCarthy Many characterize the law of copyright preemption of contracts as a circuit split. But that undersells the level of inconsistency in courts’ interpretations of the law of copyright preemption. It’s not that half of federal…

Suspended Twitter User Loses Lawsuit Over Data Access--Thomas v. Twitter

Suspended Twitter User Loses Lawsuit Over Data Access–Thomas v. Twitter

Twitter suspended the plaintiff’s Twitter account @Zay_Cipher. He wanted access to his content, so he requested an account download. However, he says the download links provided by Twitter were “defective,” so he sued Twitter pro se. Conversion. “Plaintiff’s simple act…

Plaintiffs Are Eager to Invoke the Texas Social Media Censorship Law, But Will They Have to Do So in California?

Plaintiffs Are Eager to Invoke the Texas Social Media Censorship Law, But Will They Have to Do So in California?

Plaintiffs CAN’T WAIT to sue Internet services using the Texas social media censorship law. Indeed, they are already filing lawsuits despite the pending Supreme Court appeal hanging over the law. But surprise! The plaintiffs may have to sue in California…

Facebook Faces Contributory Trademark Liability for Marketplace Listings--Car-Freshner v. Meta

Facebook Faces Contributory Trademark Liability for Marketplace Listings–Car-Freshner v. Meta

This case involves the hanging “car freshener” (which usually smells worse than any odors it tries to mask) in the shape of a tree. The rightsowner has trademark registrations for the tree-shaped outline: Armed with protectable rights in tree outlines,…

YouTuber Loses Lawsuit Demanding $22/View--Ray v. Google

YouTuber Loses Lawsuit Demanding $22/View–Ray v. Google

(As will be obvious in a moment, this is a pro se lawsuit). Ray created a YouTube account and aspired to become a YouTube Partner. He posted 50 videos that generated over 317k views. Incredibly, Ray thought Google promised to…

VRBO Qualifies for Section 230--Wiener v. Miller

VRBO Qualifies for Section 230–Wiener v. Miller

This lawsuit involves a tragic and deadly fire at a VRBO rental. The court dismisses VRBO from the resulting lawsuit on Section 230 and other grounds. That conclusion would have been unremarkable except that the Ninth Circuit held that VRBO…

Facebook Can Reject Unwanted Ads--Newton v. Meta

Facebook Can Reject Unwanted Ads–Newton v. Meta

This is yet another online content removal lawsuit, and it reaches the obvious and inevitable result that dozens of cases have reached before it. The plaintiffs sought to run Facebook ads for the movie “Beautiful Blue Eyes,” a movie about…

Anti-Vaxxer's Lawsuit Over Channel Removal Fails--Mercola v. YouTube

Anti-Vaxxer’s Lawsuit Over Channel Removal Fails–Mercola v. YouTube

Joseph Mercola ran a YouTube channel with 300k subscribers and 50M views. YouTube removed the channel for violating its medical misinformation policy (Mercola apparently peddled anti-vax views). Mercola sued YouTube for the usual things and got the usual outcomes. Mercola…

Lawsuit Over Twitter Suspension Fails Again--Zhang v. Twitter

Lawsuit Over Twitter Suspension Fails Again–Zhang v. Twitter

A Twitter user sued over his account suspension. The court dismissed the case without prejudice. Blog post coverage of that ruling here. The user tried again. Same result. Section 230. Twitter qualifies for the standard three-element test for 230: Twitter…