My ranking of the top 10 Internet Law developments of 2024. 10) X/Twitter Embraces Partisan Bias. For years, MAGA has claimed that Internet company employees are liberals and therefore surely moderate content to favor their preferred team (the Democrats) and…
California SB 976, “Protecting Our Kids from Social Media Addiction Act,” is one of the multitudinous laws that pretextually claim to protect kids online. Like many such laws nowadays, it’s a gish-gallop compendium of online censorship ideas: Age authentication! Parental…
A few years ago, I summarized Keith Bell’s copyright enforcement efforts: Bell published a short book in 1982. It contained a passage that has become a meme in the sports community. Bell has separately registered a copyright in the passage….
This is a FOSTA case involving Backpage, but it’s against Backpage’s vendor Salesforce. That makes this a tertiary liability claim. Here are the steps in the plaintiffs’ alleged chain of liability: V) victims promoted in Backpage advertisements (plaintiffs) –> D1)…
This is a data breach case involving a flaw in Twitter’s API that allowed malefactors to steal information about 200M Twitter users. Twitter invokes its TOS, including its warranty disclaimer and limitation of liability, against the plaintiffs’ claims for breach…
This is the instant-classic lawsuit involving a Saskatchewan farmer who text-messaged a “thumbs-up” emoji in response to an offer to buy his flax. The lower court found that the seller’s thumbs-up emoji constituted assent to the buyer’s offer and awarded…
Lloyd sued Facebok for a variety of claims (I initially described the suit as “a standard kitchen-sink pro se lawsuit against Facebook”). The district court dismissed the complaint in 2022. This summer, the Ninth Circuit largely affirmed, but it revived…
I previously described this case: Omegle enables real-time video and text chats with users assigned at random. The case involves an 11 year old girl who was a first-time Omegle user. The complaint alleges that a malefactor John Doe manipulated…
Goodness gracious, I could teach an entire semester of Internet Law focused solely on Uber’s TOS formation. It’s a source of never-ending, and sometimes avoidable, drama. This opinion is a companion to the Massachusetts Supreme Court’s decision in Good v….
In 2018, Jason Fyk sued Facebook for removing and blocking his content. My previous summary of this litigation campaign: His lawsuit against Facebook was dashed by Section 230 in the district court. The Ninth Circuit quickly agreed and then denied his en banc…