Section 230 Applies to Employee's Post on Government-Operated Internal Message Board--Montanino v. New York City Dep't of Sanitation

The New York City Department of Sanitation runs an internal message board for employees. An as-yet-unidentified employee posted a message to the board regarding a civil-service test cheating scandal. The pseudonymous message claimed that the plaintiff leaked the answers to…

Think Kiwi Farms Is Legally Unassailable? Copyright Law Might Disagree--Greer v. Moon

Kiwi Farms, operated by Joshua Moon, is best known for coordinating cyberattacks on individuals, especially people with disabilities. Few people would lament the site’s demise, but to date it has avoided legal exposure (1, 2) and survived multiple deplatformings (e.g.,…

Comments on the Ruling Declaring California's Age-Appropriate Design Code (AADC) Unconstitutional--NetChoice v. Bonta

[Sorry it’s take me this long to get this blog post off my desk. I hope it was worth the wait.] We’ve seen a flood of terrible Internet laws in the past few years, including the California Age-Appropriate Design Code…

Does California's Anti-Discrimination Law Ban Ad Targeting?--Liapes v. Facebook

This opinion indicates that Facebook–and by implication, every other ad network–could violate California’s Unruh Act (an anti-discrimination law) by targeting third-party ads based on age, gender, or other protected criteria. The court reaches this shocking conclusion by cutting several analytical…

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…

Laura Loomer Loses Litigation (Again)--Loomer v. Zuckerberg

Loomer produces trash content, which got her banned at Facebook and Twitter. In response, she has brought several trash lawsuits, which have gone as well as you’d expect. Her latest trash lawsuit claimed that social media, the government, and Procter…

McGucken is a professional photographer who has appeared on the blog before. He claims that third party “contributors” uploaded his copyrighted photos to ShutterStock as part of ShutterStock’s licensing program. Specifically, McGucken claims that a total of 337 images were…

In a SAD Scheme Case, Court Rejects Injunction Over "Emoji" Trademark

This is a SAD Scheme case from one of my least-favorite rightsowners, Emojico. (I wrote an expert declaration about them in 2021). Emojico has trademark registrations in the word “emoji” for a ridiculously broad range of product categories–from (I’m not…

SHOP SAFE Act Reintroduced, Because Some Congressmembers Really Want to Kill Online Marketplaces

Two years ago, I covered the introduction of the SHOP SAFE Act, which would create a new species of trademark liability for online marketplaces. My 5,000 word post deconstructed the bill in detail so check it out to see what…

I Filed an Amicus Brief Against New York's Editorial Transparency Law

Earlier this week, TechFreedom (led by Corbin Barthold and Andy Jung) and I filed an amicus brief with the Second Circuit against N.Y. General Business Law Section 394-ccc, the 2022 law that requires social media platforms to disclose their editorial…