Cameron Atkinson self-describes as “a Christian, a trial and appellate lawyer at Pattis & Smith, LLC, a former business consultant, a published constitutional scholar, and a general hell-raiser.” Publicly testing his appellate/Conlaw chops and hell-raising skills, he took his own…
The plaintiffs claim a third party, Dolan, “engaged in a pattern of behavior that resulted in the harassment of the Plaintiffs on her social media accounts” due to “Facebook and TikTok’s failure to take down [ ] false abusive posts…
In July, Trump sued Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook for terminating his accounts in three separate doomed-to-fail lawsuits. The lawsuits were filed in Trump’s home court of Southern District of Florida. The three defendants all filed motions to transfer the cases…
Though it might surprise you, copyright can protect individual emoji depictions. However, determining when they are copyrightable is a subtle art. This summer, the Copyright Review Board issued an interesting decision about the registrability of emojis. Though it won’t be the…
Pro se litigants often claim that Internet services are state actors. Those claims have been universally rejected by courts. Yet some legislators and regulators, funded by our tax dollars, are taking the same meritless position… Sescey v. YouTube, 2021 WL…
Today, the House Energy and Commerce Committee is marking up the INFORM Act (I think this is the latest version but who knows). The INFORM Act is like a “know-your-customer” (KYC) law for sellers in online marketplaces. It iterates on…
Last week, the California Senate Judiciary Committee held an informational hearing entitled “State of Social Media Regulation: Misinformation, Exploitation, Harassment, and Radicalization.” I testified about Section 230’s applicability to state regulatory efforts. Spoiler: Section 230 forecloses many of the legislature’s…
The plaintiffs are Adrienne Sepaniak King and Christopher Edward Sepaniak King, a mother-son duo. The family that sues together stays together. Facebook terminated the mom’s account allegedly for violating Facebook’s community standards. Attempts to resurrect it were unsuccessful. The lawsuit…
Yesterday I presented at UC Hastings’ Pound Civil Justice Institute on my forthcoming paper that questions the constitutionality of mandatory disclosure obligations imposed on Internet services. My talk notes: I’m writing about laws that mandate the transparency of editorial activities…
A Better Way Wholesale Autos sells cars “as is.” Some buyers who experienced mechanical problems nevertheless felt hornswoggled, and over 100 of them complained to the Better Business Bureau (BBB). The vendor sued BBB because the low ratings were allegedly…