Facebook’s conduct was “discriminatory and exacerbated the persisting effects of historic discrimination,” said The Free Press Friday, hailing the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ 3-1 reversal of a lower court’s ruling in a civil rights case that Facebook was immune from liability under Section 230 protection of the Communications Act.
Section 230
The FTC’s sole claim against Stratics Networks is barred under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act because Stratics’ ringless voicemail (RVM) platform and session initiation protocol termination service are interactive computer services under that statute, said Stratics’ memorandum of points and authorities Tuesday (docket 3:23-cv-00313) in U.S. District Court for Southern California in San Diego in support of its motion to dismiss the FTC’s Feb. 16 complaint. The government improperly seeks to hold Stratics liable as the publisher or speaker of content provided solely by others, it said.
The instant-messaging app Telegram and online dating app Scruff “acted in dereliction of their duties as internet service providers by failing to adequately monitor and police against” the sexual trafficking and exploitation of young children on their platforms, alleged a complaint Wednesday (docket 2:23-cv-02519) in U.S. District Court for South Carolina in Charleston. The plaintiff filed it under the pseudonym Jane Roe on behalf of her five-year-old son. Telegram and Scruff “are fully aware of the ongoing sexual abuse of children through the use of their social media products,” yet they refuse to comply with the requirements of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, it said. Telegram and Scruff have had “actual knowledge that sexual predators” were using their apps, but did little to stop enabling them, it said. Though Section 230 “has been credited with allowing the internet to flourish and enabling innovation in the online space,” it also enabled online platforms “to avoid responsibility for harmful or illegal content, such as hate speech, cyberbullying, and sex trafficking,” said the complaint. “Section 230 is no shield” for the conduct of Telegram and Scruff in this case, but plaintiff Roe anticipates that they will raise Section 230 in their defense, it said. Neither platform responded to requests for comment Thursday.
Section 230 protection is broad and bars a Californian user’s lawsuit against Twitter, the 1st District California Court of Appeals ruled Friday. The court affirmed a lower court dismissing Maria Rutenburg’s complaint about Twitter deleting former President Donald Trump’s account. Rutenberg claimed Twitter violated her state constitutional right to free speech when the platform moderated and deleted Trump’s account because it prevented her from accessing an “interactive space” for replying to the Republican’s tweets. Twitter demurred, arguing the lawsuit was barred by Section 230; the social platform isn’t a state actor; Rutenberg lacks standing because Twitter moderated Trump’s account, not hers; and Trump is no longer president. The trial court agreed, so the Twitter user appealed. Although Rutenberg denies it, she's “seeking to hold Twitter liable for ‘typical publisher conduct protected by section 230,’” wrote Judge Kathleen Banke. “It makes no difference that Rutenberg has styled her claim as one for violation of free speech rights under our state constitution.” The allegedly injurious conduct included “Twitter’s decisions regarding whether to edit content posted by an account holder or to ban it altogether,” she said. “Rutenberg’s allegations demonstrate that her state free speech claim is grounded on Twitter’s editorial actions with respect to Trump’s account, and not on Twitter’s origination and posting of independent ‘news’ content. That these editorial actions resulted in an alteration of the ‘physical interactive space,’ and specifically the elimination of this space, does not change the fact that her claims are rooted in” Twitter editorial decisions. “The label a plaintiff ascribes to a social media platform’s conduct is not determinative of whether section 230 bars the lawsuit.” Banke added, “There undoubtedly is tension between the dual purposes of section 230 -- to limit federal regulation and thereby encourage free speech … and to encourage the monitoring and control of content that a private social media platform deems offensive.” But she said that’s a matter for Congress.
Here are Communications Litigation Today's top stories from last week, in case you missed them. Each can be found by searching on its title or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.
Here are Communications Litigation Today's top stories from last week, in case you missed them. Each can be found by searching on its title or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.
“Suppose that a federal national security agency teamed up with private research institutions" to establish a "mass-surveillance and mass-censorship program," posited Monday's reply memorandum (docket 3:22-cv-01213) from the Republican attorneys general of Louisiana and Missouri in support of their motion for a preliminary injunction against federal officials and agencies. That's a hypothetical that's "directly analogous to the facts in this case," said the filing in U.S. District Court for Western Louisiana in Monroe.
Thursday’s U.S. Supreme Court decisions declining to address the application of Section 230 in two terrorist-related cases (see 2305180049) emphasize "the urgency for Congress to enact needed reforms to Section 230,” said House Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., in a statement. The law “hasn’t been meaningfully updated since the Communications Decency Act was enacted, nearly three decades ago,” she said. “The online ecosystem has changed drastically since then, which is why we must update the law intended to hold these companies accountable.” But Michael De Dora, Access Now’s U.S. policy and advocacy manager, said the SCOTUS decisions in the two cases "preserve fundamental protections for freedom of expression online.” People in the U.S. and abroad “rely on social media platforms to exercise their rights, and it’s critical that democratic institutions do their job and protect the ability of such platforms to operate in a complex digital world,” he said.
The U.S. Supreme Court declined to address the application of Section 230 in two terrorist-related cases, saying Thursday lawsuits against Google and Twitter fail to state “plausible” claims.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday declined to address the application of Section 230 in two terrorist-related cases, saying lawsuits against Google and Twitter failed to state “plausible” claims. Tech groups lauded victories in Gonzalez v. Google (21-1333) and Twitter v. Taamneh (21-1496) (see 2304040064). In an unsigned opinion, the high court found that “much (if not all)” of the Gonzalez complaint “seems to fail under either our decision in Twitter or the Ninth Circuit’s unchallenged holdings below.” The court found Twitter didn’t aid and abet the terror attack at issue in Taamneh. In Gonzalez, the court declined to “address the application of §230 to a complaint that appears to state little, if any, plausible claim for relief. Instead, we vacate the judgment below and remand the case for the Ninth Circuit to consider plaintiffs’ complaint in light of our decision in Twitter.”