Plaintiff Richard Jackson’s complaint is his second attempt to “vindicate grievances allegedly suffered” by Donald Trump-leaning Republicans “at the hands of a supposed collection” of tech companies, educational institutions, the Democratic National Committee and the Biden administration. So said defendants Alphabet, Google, Instagram, Meta, Twitter and YouTube in their joint motion Thursday (docket 2:22-cv-09438) in U.S. District Court for Central California in Los Angeles to dismiss Jackson’s complaint. Jackson first tried to bring his lawsuit in state court “but abandoned that effort and voluntarily dismissed the case in the face of a demurrer,” it said. His current second complaint “mushroomed” to 10 times the length of the state-court complaint, added two plaintiffs and “is replete with conspiracy theories, tabloid storylines, and haphazard copy-and-paste jobs from other lawsuits,” it said. Length “is no substitute for substance,” and on that front, the complaint “falls short,” it said. Jackson and his co-plaintiffs lack Article III standing, “including because they have not alleged particularized injuries that affect them in a personal way,” it said. They also can’t state a Section 1983 claim against the defendants, all private actors, for violating the First Amendment, it said. Section 1983 doesn’t create a cause of action for claims “under the color of federal law,” it said. The defendants don’t qualify as state actors “under any recognized theory of coercion or joint action,” it said. The plaintiffs also fail to allege a claim for election interference, it said. “Any such claim requires showing state action,” which the plaintiffs can’t do, it said. The complaint also contains no allegations “remotely suggesting any statutory or constitutional violation,” it said. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act bars the plaintiffs’ statutory claims, as courts in the 9th Circuit “have repeatedly held,” it said.

Attorney Ronald Johnson, of Hendy Johnson in Louisville, filed two more public nuisance lawsuits Wednesday on behalf of Kentucky school districts suing social media platforms for their alleged role in a growing mental health crisis among U.S. teens. Most of Hendy Johnson's 29 docketed cases have been combined in Social Media Adolescent Addiction/Personal Injury Products Liability Litigation in U.S. District Court for Northern California in Oakland under U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers. The latest Kentucky school districts to sue Facebook, Instagram, Snap, TikTok and YouTube are Johnson County (docket 7:23-cv-00036), based in Paintsville, with 3,300 students in 11 schools, filed in U.S. District Court for Eastern Kentucky in Pikesville, and Montgomery County (docket 5:23-cv-00124), based in Mount Sterling, with 4,300 students in eight schools. It filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court for Eastern Kentucky in Lexington. The suits seek orders that defendants are jointly and severally liable and must end the described nuisance; equitable relief to fund prevention education and treatment for excessive and problematic use of social media; actual, compensatory and statutory damages; plus attorneys’ fees and legal costs.

The roster of negligence and public nuisance lawsuits brought by U.S. school districts against social media platforms continues to spiral, with new cases filed this week in California, Florida, Indiana and Kentucky. Hendy Johnson added to the firm’s roster of nearly 20 public nuisance cases in federal courts in Kentucky and Indiana, some of which have been wrapped into Social Media Adolescent Addiction/Personal Injury Products Liability Litigation (docket 4:22-md-3047) under U.S. District Court Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in Northern California, Oakland. The latest Hendy Johnson suit (docket 6:23-cv-00071), filed by Bell County Public Schools Tuesday in U.S. District Court for Eastern Kentucky in London, alleges Facebook, Instagram, Snap, TikTok and YouTube are contributing to a mental health crisis among American youth. The law firm filed a nearly identical suit Monday in U.S. District Court for Northern Indiana in Fort Wayne for plaintiff Fort Wayne Community Schools. The suits claim public nuisance and seek orders that defendants are jointly and severally liable and must end the described nuisance; equitable relief to fund prevention education and treatment for excessive and problematic use of social media; actual, compensatory and statutory damages; plus attorneys’ fees and legal costs. Frantz Law, which has filed about 20 lawsuits against social media companies on behalf of school districts in various states, filed (docket 3:23-cv-02015) its latest Tuesday for Florida’s Volusia County Schools, with over 62,000 students in 90 schools. In addition to public nuisance, it claims negligence and violation of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. Frantz Law filed a nearly identical suit Monday on behalf of Evergreen School District, Clark County, Washington, requesting an injunction for actions contributing to public nuisance; relief to fund prevention education and treatment; actual, compensatory and statutory damages; plus attorneys’ fees and legal costs. The lawsuits anticipate defendants will raise Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act as a shield for their conduct, but the plaintiffs argue Section 230 is no shield for defendants' acts in designing, marketing and operating social media platforms that are harmful to youth.

Member cases in Social Media Adolescent Addiction/Personal Injury Products Liability Litigation at the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (4:22-md-3047) reached some 180 Friday, as lawsuits continue to be consolidated under U.S. District Court Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers for Northern California in Oakland (see 2304130042). The lawsuits, brought by individuals and school districts, assert Facebook, Instagram, Google, Snapchat and TikTok are responsible for a growing youth mental health crisis in the U.S. A dozen related cases were transferred since Wednesday.

U.S. District Court Judge Terry Doughty deferred (docket 3:22-cv-01213) a ruling on a motion to consolidate (docket 3:23-cv-00381) filed Tuesday by plaintiffs Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Children’s Defense and Connie Sampognaro (see 2304050007) until a resolution has been rendered on the pending motion for preliminary injunction in Missouri et al. v. Biden et al. in U.S. District Court for Western Louisiana in Monroe. The court is also waiting for resolution on a pending motion for leave to amend complaint to add class allegations and for class certification. Missouri v. Biden centers on allegations of “government censorship of free speech by means of coercion and/or significant encouragement toward social-media platforms,” said Doughty, a Donald Trump appointee. Kennedy v. Biden is a “First Amendment challenge to the massive, systematic efforts by the federal government to induce social media companies to censor constitutionally protected speech,” said plaintiffs’ Saturday notice of motion for consolidation. Kennedy filed to run for president as a Democrat Wednesday with the Federal Election Commission. “Due to the current procedural status of this case and the voluminous filings already made in relation to the pending motions, the Court finds that it would not be appropriate at this time to consolidate these matters,” Doughty said, noting the two pending motions before the court are still not fully briefed. The court agrees with defendants that allowing the Kennedy plaintiffs to submit a separate motion for preliminary injunction, consolidation of that motion with the Missouri Plaintiffs’ motion, and submission by the Kennedy plaintiffs of a motion for certification of their putative class prior to the court hearing the Missouri plaintiffs’ outstanding motions would place a “substantial burden on both the court and defendants.”

Journalist John Stossel and Meta stipulated to the voluntary dismissal with prejudice of Stossel’s appeal of a lower court’s dismissal of his social media complaint, said their joint motion Monday (docket 22-16765) in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The parties agreed each side will bear its own costs and fees on appeal, it said. Stossel alleged Meta improperly labeled his Facebook videos about climate change as containing misinformation, causing irreparable damage to his reputation and costing him reduced viewership and advertising revenue (see 2212140031). A magistrate judge dismissed his complaint on grounds that Stossel’s claims were barred by the Communications Decency Act. The former 20/20 and Fox Business TV journalist now runs the online channel Stossel TV. Stossel’s appeal had been in mediation, pushing back the deadline several times for filing his opening brief to April 21.

Fenix International and OnlyFans majority owner Leonid Radvinsky, defendants in a September unfair competition class action that includes Meta and others, responded in support of plaintiffs’ administrative motion to consider whether Fenix defendants’ materials submitted in support of plaintiffs’ response to show cause order should be sealed, said a Tuesday filing (docket 3:22-cv-01101) in U.S. District Court for Northern California in San Francisco. Proposed redactions include details of specific contracts and particular individuals who entered the contracts with an understanding of confidentiality, business and personal bank account information, nonpublic earnings and transaction data, and names and email addresses of nonparty independent contractors, it said. In February 2022, adult entertainers Dawn Dangaard, Kelly Gilbert and Jennifer Allbaugh sued Meta’s social media sites, Fenix and Radvinsky, alleging the defendants colluded with OnlyFans competitors to blacklist them from Meta’s social media platforms (see 2301170057).

Three Communications Decency Act Section 230 class actions against Meta and other social media platforms were transferred and consolidated under U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers for Northern California in Oakland, said a Feb. 15 conditional transfer order (docket 2:23-cv-00172) from the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation. Since the panel transferred 20 similar civil actions to the same court Oct. 6, 46 additional actions have been transferred and assigned to Rogers, said the order. The three newest cases -- filed by school districts in Kent, Washington (see 2301110029), Mesa Public Schools in Arizona (see 2301270067), and the Seattle School District -- involve questions of fact common to the previously transferred actions, it said.

Amid the “national commitment to the free expression of speech,” even where that speech is “offensive or repugnant,” U.S. District Judge Andrew Carter for Southern New York, in a Feb. 14 opinion and order (docket 1:22-cv-10195), granted the motion of three online platform operators for a preliminary injunction blocking the enforcement of New York’s new Hateful Conduct Law. Carter said the law “chills the constitutionally protected speech of social media users, without articulating a compelling governmental interest or ensuring that the law is narrowly tailored to that goal,” said his opinion. The law requires that social media networks install a mechanism for users to file complaints about allegedly hateful conduct and disclose policies for how they will respond to any such complaints. The plaintiffs’ Dec. 6 motion for preliminary judgment said they have a well-founded fear that the law will be enforced against their online platforms, and they're likely to prevail on the merits because the law burdens and compels speech, is overbroad and void for vagueness, and is preempted by the Communications Decency Act. The First Amendment protects individuals' right to engage in hate speech, “and the state cannot try to inhibit that right, no matter how unseemly or offensive that speech may be to the general public or the state,” said Carter’s order. “This could have a profound chilling effect on social media users and their protected freedom of expression.” He denied their CDA claims, saying the law doesn’t impose liability on social media networks for failing to respond to an incident of hateful conduct, nor does it impose liability on the network for its users’ own hateful conduct. The law doesn’t impose liability on the plaintiffs as publishers in “contravention” of the CDA, said Carter.

Roomster denies culpability for the fraud allegations brought by the FTC and five states to thwart the company's alleged proliferation of fake positive online reviews, said its answer to the complaint Wednesday (docket 1:22-cv-07389) in U.S. District Court for Southern New York. The plaintiffs’ claims are barred because Roomster is “immune from liability” under Section 230 of the Communication Decency Act, it said. That’s notwithstanding U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon’s recent denial of Roomster’s motions for dismissal, to stay discovery and for a protective order in which she said Section 230 doesn't shield the company from its alleged violations of federal and state consumer protection laws (see 2302030034). The plaintiffs’ claims are barred in whole or in part because the consumers they purport to protect “have enjoyed the full benefit of their purchase of services and/or products” that are the subject of the complaint, said Roomster.