A Roundup of Recent Section 230 Decisions Involving Sex Abuse or CSAM
Another lengthy blog post rounding up cases from the past few months involving CSAM or commercial sex and Section 230/FOSTA. Doe #1 v. MG Freesites, Ltd., 2025 WL 1314179 (N.D. Ala. May 6, 2025) Prior blog posts (1, 2). Previously…
YouTuber Loses Lawsuit Over Account Suspension–Hall v. YouTube
The court summarizes the facts: In April 2024, Hall became involved in a public feud with another YouTube user, “MoneyBoy Tr3y,” (Tr3y”) which led to the exchange of multiple DMCA takedown notices between the two. Hall alleges that Tr3y submitted…
Video Game Addiction Case Mostly Sent to Arbitration–Orellana v. Roblox (Catch-up Post)
[Introductory note: This case appeared in my alerts recently. It is one of the many video game addiction lawsuits percolating throughout the courts nationwide. I don’t have a census of all of those cases because they aren’t hitting my alerts….
Court Upholds a Browsewrap (Because It Was Really a Sign-in-Wrap)–Hoar v. Hotmart
This case involves the Hotmart service, an online marketplace of digital items. The plaintiffs claim they didn’t receive their purchased items and were charged for other unwanted services. Hotmart invoked the venue selection clause in its TOS to try to…
Leaky TOS Formation = No TOS Formation–Snyder v. G6
This is a Meta pixels case agains the G6 hotel chain (a/k/a Motel 6). G6 sought to arbitrate the case per its TOS. G6 presented the court with a screenshot of Motel 6’s standard account creation process: G6 added the…
Hinge Defeats Account Termination Case–Bangalore v. Match
This is a New York small claims court case, so I’m primarily blogging it for completeness. The plaintiff created a Hinge account in January 2024. In March 2024, Hinge terminated his account without explanation. This triggered a cross-account termination at…
Another TOS Formation Failure in the 9th Circuit–Godun v. JustAnswer
This case involves the JustAnswer service, which ensnares possibly unsuspecting consumers into an auto-renewal that consumers allegedly don’t want. JustAnswers’ TOS formation process was rejected in the California state courts. It fares no better in federal court. Important nomenclature note:…
Court Permanently Enjoins Ohio’s Segregate-and-Suppress/Parental Consent Law–NetChoice v. Yost
Ohio enacted a segregate-and-suppress law that requires regulated websites to obtain parental consent before minors can access certain site features. In early 2024, the court granted a preliminary injunction against the law going into effect. Borrowing heavily from its prior…
Courts’ Expectations for TOS Formation Keep Going Up—Lee v. Plex
This is a VPPA claim against Plex (a video streaming service) regarding the use of Meta Pixels. 🙄🙄 The defendant invoked the arbitration clause in its TOS. Extensively citing Chabolla, the court rejects the arbitration request. Here is Plex’s sign-up…
First Amendment Doesn’t Apply to Descriptions of Content Moderation Practices–Bride v. Snap
Last year, the Ninth Circuit said that plaintiffs could get around Section 230 in their lawsuit against the app maker YOLO because the app maker said it would ban users for inappropriate statements and would unmask harassers. This opinion raised…