communications decency act

Professor sues Meta to allow release of feed-killing tool for Facebook

Ethan Zuckerman wants to release a tool that would allow Facebook users to control what appears in their newsfeeds. His privacy-friendly browser extension, Unfollow Everything 2.0, is designed to essentially give users a switch to turn the newsfeed on and off whenever they want, providing a way to eliminate or curate the feed.

Ethan Zuckerman, a professor at University of Massachusetts Amherst, is suing Meta to release a tool allowing Facebook users to “unfollow everything.” (Photo by Lorrie LeJeune)

The tool is nearly ready to be released, Zuckerman told Ars, but the University of Massachusetts Amherst associate professor is afraid that Facebook owner Meta might threaten legal action if he goes ahead. And his fears appear well-founded. In 2021, Meta sent a cease-and-desist letter to the creator of the original Unfollow Everything, Louis Barclay, leading that developer to shut down his tool after thousands of Facebook users had eagerly downloaded it.

Zuckerman is suing Meta, asking a US district court in California to invalidate Meta’s past arguments against developers like Barclay and rule that Meta would have no grounds to sue if he released his tool.

Zuckerman insists that he’s “suing Facebook to make it better.” In picking this unusual legal fight with Meta, the professor—seemingly for the first time ever—is attempting to tip Section 230’s shield away from Big Tech and instead protect third-party developers from giant social media platforms.

To do this, Zuckerman is asking the court to consider a novel Section 230 argument relating to an overlooked provision of the law that Zuckerman believes protects the development of third-party tools that allow users to curate their newsfeeds to avoid objectionable content. His complaint cited case law and argued:

Section 230(c)(2)(B) immunizes from legal liability “a provider of software or enabling tools that filter, screen, allow, or disallow content that the provider or user considers obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable.” Through this provision, Congress intended to promote the development of filtering tools that enable users to curate their online experiences and avoid content they would rather not see.

Unfollow Everything 2.0 falls in this “safe harbor,” Zuckerman argues, partly because “the purpose of the tool is to allow users who find the newsfeed objectionable, or who find the specific sequencing of posts within their newsfeed objectionable, to effectively turn off the feed.”

Ramya Krishnan, a senior staff attorney at the Knight Institute who helped draft Zuckerman’s complaint, told Ars that some Facebook users are concerned that the newsfeed “prioritizes inflammatory and sensational speech,” and they “may not want to see that kind of content.” By turning off the feed, Facebook users could choose to use the platform the way it was originally designed, avoiding being served objectionable content by blanking the newsfeed and manually navigating to only the content they want to see.

“Users don’t have to accept Facebook as it’s given to them,” Krishnan said in a press release provided to Ars. “The same statute that immunizes Meta from liability for the speech of its users gives users the right to decide what they see on the platform.”

Zuckerman, who considers himself “old to the Internet,” uses Facebook daily and even reconnected with and began dating his now-wife on the platform. He has a “soft spot” in his heart for Facebook and still finds the platform useful to keep in touch with friends and family.

But while he’s “never been in the ‘burn it all down’ camp,” he has watched social media evolve to give users less control over their feeds and believes “that the dominance of a small number of social media companies tends to create the illusion that the business model adopted by them is inevitable,” his complaint said.

Snapchat isn’t liable for connecting 12-year-old to convicted sex offenders

child sexual abuse materials, communications decency act, csam, Evan spiegel, kids online safety act, KOSA, Policy, Section 230, snap, Snapchat / Ryan Harris / February 23, 2024

A judge has dismissed a complaint from a parent and guardian of a girl, now 15, who was sexually assaulted when she was 12 years old after Snapchat recommended that she connect with convicted sex offenders.

According to the court filing, the abuse that the girl, C.O., experienced on Snapchat happened soon after she signed up for the app in 2019. Through its “Quick Add” feature, Snapchat “directed her” to connect with “a registered sex offender using the profile name JASONMORGAN5660.” After a little more than a week on the app, C.O. was bombarded with inappropriate images and subjected to sextortion and threats before the adult user pressured her to meet up, then raped her. Cops arrested the adult user the next day, resulting in his incarceration, but his Snapchat account remained active for three years despite reports of harassment, the complaint alleged.

Two years later, at 14, C.O. connected with another convicted sex offender on Snapchat, a former police officer who offered to give C.O. a ride to school and then sexually assaulted her. The second offender is also currently incarcerated, the judge’s opinion noted.

The lawsuit painted a picture of Snapchat’s ongoing neglect of minors it knows are being targeted by sexual predators. Prior to C.O.’s attacks, both adult users sent and requested sexually explicit photos, seemingly without the app detecting any child sexual abuse materials exchanged on the platform. C.O. had previously reported other adult accounts sending her photos of male genitals, but Snapchat allegedly “did nothing to block these individuals from sending her inappropriate photographs.”

Among other complaints, C.O.’s lawsuit alleged that Snapchat’s algorithm for its “Quick Add” feature was the problem. It allegedly recklessly works to detect when adult accounts are seeking to connect with young girls and, by design, sends more young girls their way—continually directing sexual predators toward vulnerable targets. Snapchat is allegedly aware of these abuses and, therefore, should be held liable for harm caused to C.O., the lawsuit argued.

Although C.O.’s case raised difficult questions, Judge Barbara Bellis ultimately agreed with Snapchat that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act barred all claims and shielded Snap because “the allegations of this case fall squarely within the ambit of the immunity afforded to” platforms publishing third-party content.

According to Bellis, C.O.’s family had “clearly alleged” that Snap had failed to design its recommendations systems to block young girls from receiving messages from sexual predators. Specifically, Section 230 immunity shields Snap from liability in this case because Bellis considered the messages exchanged to be third-party content. Snapchat designing its recommendation systems to deliver content is a protected activity, Bellis ruled.

Internet law professor Eric Goldman wrote in his blog that Bellis’ “well-drafted and no-nonsense opinion” is “grounded” in precedent. Pointing to an “extremely similar” 2008 case against MySpace—”which reached the same outcome that Section 230 applies to offline sexual abuse following online messaging”—Goldman suggested that “the law has been quite consistent for a long time.”

However, as this case was being decided, a seemingly conflicting ruling in a Los Angeles court found that “Section 230 didn’t protect Snapchat from liability for allegedly connecting teens with drug dealers,” MediaPost noted. Bellis acknowledged this outlier opinion but did not appear to consider it persuasive.

Yet, at the end of her opinion, Bellis seemed to take aim at Section 230 as perhaps being too broad.

She quoted a ruling from the First Circuit Court of Appeals, which noted that some Section 230 cases, presumably like C.O.’s, are “hard” for courts not because “the legal issues defy resolution,” but because Section 230 requires that the court “deny relief to plaintiffs whose circumstances evoke outrage.” She then went on to quote an appellate court ruling on a similarly “difficult” Section 230 case that warned “without further legislative action,” there is “little” that courts can do “but join with other courts and commentators in expressing concern” with Section 230’s “broad scope.”

Ars could not immediately reach Snapchat or lawyers representing C.O.’s family for comment.

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