Fourth Circuit's 230 Meltdown Gives Plaintiffs False Hope--Divino v. Google

Last year, in Henderson v. Source for Public Data, the Fourth Circuit issued a MAGAlicious Section 230 opinion that seemingly trashed 25 years of Fourth Circuit precedent. It was immediately obvious that plaintiffs would widely cite the ruling. However, so…

"Stop the Steal" Rally Attendee's Defamation Claim Fails--Chad Burmeister v. Saldich

Chad Burmeister (no Chad jokes, please…no Karen jokes, either) attended the DC “Stop the Steal” rally on January 6, 2021. One of his LinkedIn contacts noisily dropped him as a contact, saying: Normally I’d stay away from political commentary on…

Section 230 Protects Services That Permit Anonymous Third-Party Posts--Bride v. Snap

This case involves two “anonymous messaging” apps, Yolo and LMK. Both allegedly target teens audiences. “Plaintiffs allege they received harassing messages in response to their benign posts on Defendants’ applications and did not receive comparable messages on other platforms in…

My Amicus Brief in Gonzalez v. Google

Internet Law is in play at the U.S. Supreme Court, as they will likely hear at least four cases this term. (A possible fifth is the 303 Creative case). The four cases: Gonzalez v. Google, over whether Section 230 applies…

Moran made several comments on generally-wholesome “mom blogs” asking moms to have their daughters create CSAM to his specifications. Among other crimes, he was prosecuted for attempted CSAM production. His defense was basically that it was so stupid to ask…

Yet another case involving high school students being disciplined for doing stupid things online. Ugh. This case involves high school freshmen at a Missouri public school. In September 2021, while riding on a school bus to a football game, Plaintiff…

James A. (Jim) Hall was a candidate for the Arkansas House of Representatives. Right before the November 2022 election, Facebook temporarily suspended his account, cutting off his access to 2.5k friends/followers. This sounds like a potentially problematic move by Facebook,…

Censorship * Wired: China Is Tightening Its Grip on Big Tech * NY Times: ‘An Invisible Cage’: How China Is Policing the Future * NY Times: How Russian Trolls Helped Keep the Women’s March Out of Lock Step * Wired:…

Twitter Defeats Account Suspension Lawsuit Again--Al-Ahmed v. Twitter

I previously described the case: This case involves the tragic situation where two Twitter employees allegedly became operatives for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and turned over sensitive information about the government’s critics to the Saudi Arabia government. I’m going…

Section 230 * Ayala v. Viator, Inc., 2021 Mass. Super. LEXIS 1151 (Mass. Superior Ct. Nov. 19, 2021): The claims in the Second Amended Complaint seek to hold Defendants liable for content created and published by Defendants, not a third…