A fashion model who sued Amazon, Walmart and Ulta for using her likeness in their advertising is considering appealing a decision against her in U.S. District Court for Southern New York in Manhattan (see 2301260040), her attorney said in a statement Friday. "This is an important matter of first impression that is of great importance to those whose likenesses have been used online without consent,” said attorney Scott Burroughs of Doniger/Burroughs, who represents model Patty Ratermann. “We plan to explore all options, including appeal." U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman ruled that Amazon, Walmart and Ulta are immune under Communications Decency Act Section 230.

Meta denies liability for all claims alleged in a second amended class action adult entertainers brought against the company and its Facebook and Instagram platforms alleging unfair competition, said Meta's response Friday (docket 3:22-cv-1101) in U.S. District Court for Northern California in San Francisco. In February, adult entertainers Dawn Dangaard, Kelly Gilbert and Jennifer Allbaugh sued Meta’s social media sites and Fenix International, which owns adult platform OnlyFans, and its owner Leonid Radvinsky, alleging the defendants colluded with OnlyFans competitors to blacklist them from Meta’s social media platforms. Until late 2018, the online adult entertainment industry was a competitive market, said the amended complaint, filed in September. Soon after Radvinsky’s purchase of OnlyFans in October 2018, plaintiffs saw a drop-off in traffic and user engagement on Meta’s social media platforms, the complaint said. The services deleted posts that plaintiffs used on the platform to drive traffic to their sites, and other posts were “hidden,” plaintiffs said. The number of click-throughs from those posts that appeared on social media services “dropped drastically,” they said. The reduced traffic and deletions were most noticeable on Instagram but also occurred on Twitter, Facebook, Snap and other mainstream platforms, the complaint alleged. Adult entertainment providers that had promoted exclusively on OnlyFans appeared to be unaffected by “automated takedowns and reduced traffic,” it said. In their response, Meta’s counsel said plaintiffs’ claims are barred in whole or in part by Section 230(c)(1) of the Communications Decency Act, the First Amendment, Meta’s terms of services, the doctrines of waiver, the doctrines of unclean hands and the failure to mitigate damages.

Plaintiff NetChoice consented to magistrate judge jurisdiction in its lawsuit against California Attorney General Rob Bonta (D), but Bonta declined, said their filings Wednesday (NetChoice's and Bonta's) in U.S. District Court for Northern California in San Jose (docket 5:22-cv-08861). California’s age-appropriate social media design law violates the First Amendment by telling sites how to “manage constitutionally protected speech,” NetChoice alleged Dec. 14 in a complaint seeking to invalidate AB-2273 (see 2212140063). An initial case management conference in the dispute is scheduled for March 14, said a Dec. 15 order.

The U.S. District Court for Northern California in San Jose gave both sides in NetChoice’s lawsuit against California Attorney General Rob Bonta (D) a Jan. 4 deadline for consenting or declining to proceed before a magistrate judge, said a clerk’s text-only notice in docket 5:22-cv-08861. California’s age-appropriate social media design law violates the First Amendment by telling sites how to “manage constitutionally protected speech,” NetChoice alleged Dec. 14 in a complaint that seeks to invalidate AB-2273 (see 2212140063). The tech group drew comparisons to its free speech challenges against social media content moderation laws in Texas and Florida.

The 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals set a Jan. 9 mediation assessment conference in journalist John Stossel’s appeal of a lower court’s dismissal of his defamation complaint against Meta, said an order Tuesday (docket 22-16765). 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. U.S. Magistrate Judge Virginia DeMarchi granted Meta’s motion to dismiss on grounds that Stossel’s defamation claim is barred by the Communications Decency Act. The former 20/20 and Fox Business TV journalist now runs the online channel Stossel TV.

The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana shouldn't stay additional discovery pending a ruling on the motion to dismiss a lawsuit from Republican state attorneys general claiming Biden administration officials colluded with Big Tech to censor social media information, said U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty in a memorandum order (docket 3:22-cv-01213) filed Wednesday. The expedited preliminary discovery schedule is extended from Dec. 31 to Jan. 13, Doughty said. On Nov. 22, the DOJ dismissed the AGs’ evidence of “coercion,” including official statements about combating misinformation, suggestions about potential antitrust action against the companies and comments about the need to alter Communications Decency Act Section 230 (see 2211230075). The Wednesday memorandum order said four of eight authorized depositions in the case have been taken, but the 5th Circuit stayed the depositions of U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy; Jen Easterly, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency director; and Rob Flaherty, White House director of digital strategy. It also required the district court to: (1) analyze whether information sought could be addressed through alternative means, and (2) evaluate the prudence of ruling on the defendants’ motion to dismiss prior to authorizing additional depositions. Former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, who wasn't a party in the writ of mandamus, also objects to taking her deposition, said the order. The court authorized the plaintiffs to take the deposition of Murthy’s chief of staff, Eric Waldo, as an alternative. The defendants have provided “no reasonable alternative” to Psaki, saying she no longer works for the White House.

Google is protected by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act from claims by Prager University that the platform restricted ads and access to Prager’s YouTube videos over the university’s political and religious views, said a ruling from California’s Court of Appeal for the 6th Appellate District Monday. The ruling upheld a similar decision from a lower court. The appeals court rejected Prager arguments that Google is an information provider, that it was liable due to language in its terms of service, and that Section 230 is unconstitutional. “To the extent Prager’s claims principally rest on allegations that defendants violated a duty under state law to exercise their editorial control in a particular manner, defendants are immune under section 230 from the claims Prager brings in this suit,” said the court. “Social media platforms are generally permitted to decide for themselves what content to publish.”

Twitter had more direct knowledge of child sex-abuse material (CSAM) on its platform than Reddit did in a similar case, attorneys for sex-trafficking victims told the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Friday in 22-15103 (see 2211100032). Twitter last week attempted to have the case thrown out, saying the 9th Circuit’s decision in favor of Reddit means the court should also rule in favor of Twitter. The Twitter case is different from Reddit's because unlike Reddit Twitter “confirmed and had direct knowledge that one of the victims” was a child, the plaintiffs said in their filing. And unlike Reddit, in which the alleged harm was “general,” plaintiffs in this case “directly allege that Twitter specifically benefited because of its refusal to remove CSAM depicting them,” the filing said. The allegations that Twitter “participated in a venture are more specific than the allegations in Reddit and therefore meet” a more “exacting” legal standard the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals established in 2016 in U.S. v. Afyare, the filing said: “The Reddit panel did not address facts where a platform knows the scope of user engagement with specific CSAM, and the corresponding increase in the benefit it receives.” The filing denied Twitter’s claim that the plaintiffs have conceded that their “beneficiary claim must be reversed.”

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ recent decision in favor of Reddit against sex-trafficking claims means a similar case against Twitter should be dismissed, Twitter said Wednesday in docket 3:21-cv-00485 (see 2210100007 and 2210310063). The 9th Circuit, which reviewed both cases, sided with Reddit in 8:21-cv-00768 (see 2210260073), ruling that victims suing Reddit for allegedly profiting from child porn failed to plead that the website “knowingly benefited” from facilitating sex trafficking. “Plaintiffs quietly recognize Reddit’s applicability to their beneficiary liability sex trafficking claim, essentially conceding that reversal is required,” attorneys for Twitter said Wednesday. Twitter cited language in the court’s decision in Reddit: Section 1591, the child sex-trafficking statute, isn’t satisfied where a website allegedly “provides a platform where it is easy to share child pornography, highlights subreddits that feature child pornography to sell advertising on those pages, allows users who share child pornography to serve as subreddit moderators, and fails to remove child pornography even when users report it.”

Twitter knowingly disseminated videos of child sex abuse material (CSAM) and profited from sex-trafficking activity so it can’t claim immunity under Communications Decency Act Section 230, trafficking victims argued Friday in 22-15103 before the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals. The 9th Circuit recently sided with Reddit in a similar case about hosting child porn (see 2210260073). Twitter was notified by the victims, John Doe #1 and John Doe #2, about the sharing of the CSAM on the platform, the plaintiffs argued in a reply brief on cross-appeal: Once Twitter was aware of the material, it could have removed it and reported it to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, or it could “deliberately join in the exploitation” and continue to profit from hosting the material. “Twitter elected to profit and directly engage in the ongoing trafficking of the minor children,” the plaintiffs argued. No federal appellate court has ever held that Section 230 “provides civil immunity for knowing violations of federal or state laws prohibiting CSAM, and only a handful of district courts have done so,” they said.