I’m continuing my coverage of dangerous Internet bills in the California legislature. This job is especially challenging during an election year, when legislators rally behind the “protect the kids” mantra to pursue bills that are likely to hurt, or at…
[Note: this is the first of what may become a 3 or 4 part series about anti-Internet bills moving through the California legislature.] This post analyzes California AB 587, self-described as “Content Moderation Requirements for Internet Terms of Service.” I…
Russia * NYT: Russia Intensifies Censorship Campaign, Pressuring Tech Giants. The US government should more aggressively condemn “landing laws” as a violation of free speech? * Wired: Russia Blocks Facebook and Twitter in a Propaganda Standoff * Bloomberg: Russia Steps…
[Shoutout to all of the dads out there! 🎉] The Algorithms * What would happen if FB turned off its newsfeed algorithm? In February 2018, a Facebook researcher all but shut off the News Feed ranking algorithm for .05% of…
This case involves Cognizant, a business process outsourcer (BPO) that performed content moderation work for Facebook. (Cognizant has since exited the field). In 2021, a federal court dismissed a putative class action lawsuit against Cognizant for trauma experienced by the…
I’m blogging this in part because of the shocking facts. Ho Ka Terence Yung really wanted to attend Georgetown Law. He did an alumni interview that went poorly and was rejected soon after. (Yung ended up attending UT Austin). Blaming…
2020 was filled with terrible memories, including the COVID pandemic/shutdown and Trump’s coup attempt, so it’s easy to forget how close we came to losing Section 230. In May 2020, Trump issued his performative executive order purporting to repeal Section…
This is a case in the #MeToo genre. Rudolph runs a “private” Facebook group called The Green Lounge with about 14,000 members. Margolies was a member and made in-group connections with substantial commercial value to him. On June 3, 2020,…
Initial Interest Confusion It’s 2022 and we’re still dealing with this shit. SMH. Can we please just outright kill the doctrine and spend our time on more meaningful problems? * “the initial interest confusion doctrine…requires a finding of likelihood of…
* Hebenstreit v. Merchants Bank of Indiana, 1:18-cv-00056-JPH-DLP (S.D. Ind. Aug. 26, 2021). A photo of the Indianapolis nighttime skyline has generated $825 in license fees & $135k in settlements. After 3+ yrs of litigation, court awards Bell $200 in…