{"id":16174,"date":"2024-11-08T02:09:28","date_gmt":"2024-11-08T03:09:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=16174"},"modified":"2024-11-08T03:25:51","modified_gmt":"2024-11-08T03:25:51","slug":"lawsuit-against-meta-over-section-230-tech-shield-law-is-dismissed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=16174","title":{"rendered":"Lawsuit Against Meta Over Section 230, Tech Shield Law, Is Dismissed"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><\/div>\n<p id=\"article-summary\" class=\"css-79rysd e1wiw3jv0\">A professor sued pre-emptively to release software that would let users automatically unfollow everyone in their Facebook feed.<\/p>\n<section class=\"meteredContent css-1r7ky0e\">\n<div class=\"css-s99gbd StoryBodyCompanionColumn\" data-testid=\"companionColumn-0\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">An attempt to sue Meta using a law that shields tech giants from liability is dead for now.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">A federal judge on Thursday dismissed a <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/08\/20\/technology\/meta-section-230-lawsuit.html\" title>suit brought by a professor<\/a> who wants to build a tool that allows Facebook users to unfollow everyone in their feed. Ethan Zuckerman, who teaches public policy at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, had asked a federal court to rule that Meta, Facebook\u2019s owner, couldn\u2019t sue him if he went through with his plan.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Zuckerman and his lawyers, who work at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, were relying on a <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2021\/03\/25\/technology\/section-230-explainer.html\" title>little-used portion of Section 230<\/a> of the Communications Decency Act, a 1996 law that <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2023\/05\/18\/us\/politics\/supreme-court-google-twitter-230.html\" title>shields Meta and other tech giants<\/a> from lawsuits over content posted by their users.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California granted Meta\u2019s request to dismiss the lawsuit on Thursday, according to court records. The judge said Mr. Zuckerman could refile the lawsuit at a later date.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cWe\u2019re disappointed the court believes Professor Zuckerman needs to code the tool before the court resolves the case,\u201d said Ramya Krishnan, one of Mr. Zuckerman\u2019s lawyers. \u201cWe continue to believe that Section 230 protects user-empowering tools, and look forward to the court considering that argument at a later time.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"Dropzone-1\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"css-s99gbd StoryBodyCompanionColumn\" data-testid=\"companionColumn-1\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">A spokesman for Meta pointed to an earlier statement by the company that called the lawsuit \u201cbaseless.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"RelatedLinksBlock-3\">\n<div data-testid=\"lazy-loader\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"css-s99gbd StoryBodyCompanionColumn\" data-testid=\"companionColumn-2\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Zuckerman\u2019s lawsuit was a novel salvo in a fight over who gets to control the experience on social media platforms. He wants to create a tool that will wipe a Facebook user\u2019s feed clean. But Meta has previously sent a threatening legal letter to a software developer who released a similar tool.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Zuckerman\u2019s case hinged on a portion of Section 230 that protects the ability to restrict obscene or troublesome content, saying it should apply to any content that users don\u2019t want to see.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"RelatedLinksBlock-5\">\n<div data-testid=\"lazy-loader\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A professor sued pre-emptively to release software that would let users automatically unfollow everyone in their Facebook feed.An attempt to sue Meta using a law that shields tech giants from liability is dead for now.A federal judge on Thursday dismissed a suit brought by a professor who wants to build a tool that allows Facebook users to unfollow everyone in their feed. Ethan Zuckerman, who teaches public policy at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, had asked a federal court to rule that Meta, Facebook\u2019s owner, couldn\u2019t sue him if he went through with his plan.Mr. Zuckerman and his lawyers, who work at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, were relying on a little-used portion of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a 1996 law that shields Meta and other tech giants from lawsuits over content posted by their users.Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California granted Meta\u2019s request to dismiss the lawsuit on Thursday, according to court records. The judge said Mr. Zuckerman could refile the lawsuit at a later date.\u201cWe\u2019re disappointed the court believes Professor Zuckerman needs to code the tool before the court resolves the case,\u201d said Ramya Krishnan, one of Mr. Zuckerman\u2019s lawyers. \u201cWe continue to believe that Section 230 protects user-empowering tools, and look forward to the court considering that argument at a later time.\u201dA spokesman for Meta pointed to an earlier statement by the company that called the lawsuit \u201cbaseless.\u201dMr. Zuckerman\u2019s lawsuit was a novel salvo in a fight over who gets to control the experience on social media platforms. He wants to create a tool that will wipe a Facebook user\u2019s feed clean. But Meta has previously sent a threatening legal letter to a software developer who released a similar tool.Mr. Zuckerman\u2019s case hinged on a portion of Section 230 that protects the ability to restrict obscene or troublesome content, saying it should apply to any content that users don\u2019t want to see.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16176,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16174"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16174\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16177,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16174\/revisions\/16177"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}