In Ryan v. X Corp., a Northern District of California court held that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act immunized X (formerly Twitter) against claims arising from suspension of a user’s account, notwithstanding...more
1/22/2025
/ Algorithms ,
Artificial Intelligence ,
Automation Systems ,
Communications Decency Act ,
Content Publishing ,
Contract Terms ,
Data Protection ,
Machine Learning ,
Online Platforms ,
Safe Harbors ,
Section 230 ,
Social Media ,
User-Generated Content
In our fourth installment of our six-part series examining Section 230—the segment of the 1996 Communications Decency Act (CDA) that immunizes online service providers from liability stemming from content created by third...more
In the prior two installments of our six-part series examining Section 230, the section of the 1996 Communications Decency Act (CDA) that immunizes online service providers from liability stemming from the publication and...more
Recent Senate hearings on social media safety have spotlighted the urgent need to protect children online, a concern that’s increasingly challenging the legal frameworks governing online platforms. Against this backdrop, the...more
In this second installment of our six-part series examining Section 230, the section of the 1996 Communications Decency Act (CDA) that immunizes online service providers from liability stemming from the publication and...more
11/15/2023
/ Communications Decency Act ,
Defamation ,
Distributors ,
Immunity ,
Online Platforms ,
Publishers ,
Safe Harbors ,
Section 230 ,
Third-Party ,
User-Generated Content ,
Website Owner Liability
In this second installment of our six-part series examining Section 230, the section of the 1996 Communications Decency Act (CDA) that immunizes online service providers from liability stemming from the publication and...more
Here at Socially Aware we talk a lot about Section 230, the section of the 1996 Communications Decency Act (CDA) that immunizes social media platforms and other online service providers from liability stemming from content...more
Section 230 of the Communications and Decency Act provides broad immunity to online platforms for claims arising from hosting third-party content (though just how broad is a hot issue that the Supreme Court may decide this...more
Online background report providers have proliferated on the Internet. Consumers with claims against these sites arising under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) have faced hurdles under Section 230(c)(1) of the...more
On October 24, the Ninth Circuit ruled that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act shielded Reddit Inc. from liability under the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPA).The court considered the text...more
On October 3, 2022, the United States Supreme Court granted certiorari in Gonzalez v. Google LLC, No. 21-1333, to address the scope of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act....more
In late October, Facebook announced that it would change its name to Meta, signaling a shift of the social media giant’s focus toward the metaverse, a virtual space where social media, gaming, augmented reality, virtual...more
12/21/2021
/ Communications Decency Act ,
Facebook ,
Facial Recognition Technology ,
JAMA ,
LinkedIn ,
Pinterest ,
Rebranding ,
Social Media ,
Technology ,
Video Recordings ,
Websites
Over the past several years, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, the federal law that provides social media platforms with immunity from liability for user content and was once hailed as “the law that gave us the...more
12/16/2021
/ Big Tech ,
Censorship ,
Civil Liability ,
Communications Decency Act ,
Disclosure ,
Discrimination ,
Email ,
First Amendment ,
Immunity ,
Online Platforms ,
Section 230 ,
Social Media
While Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act continues to face significant calls for reform or even elimination, the recent Coffee v. Google case illustrates that Section 230 continues to provide broad protection to...more
6/10/2021
/ Class Action ,
Communications Decency Act ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Google ,
Google Play Store ,
Illegal Gambling ,
Immunity ,
Interactive Gaming ,
Leave to Amend ,
Payment Systems ,
Safe Harbors ,
Section 230 ,
Slot Machines ,
Social Media ,
Software ,
Virtual Currency
In Elliott v. Donegan, a federal district court in New York held that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act does not warrant the dismissal of a defamation claim where the plaintiff’s complaint did not “foreclose[] the...more
8/25/2020
/ Allegations ,
Communications Decency Act ,
Defamation ,
Dismissals ,
Immunity ,
Interactive Process ,
Internet ,
Internet Service Providers (ISPs) ,
Media ,
Section 230 ,
Sexual Assault ,
Third-Party ,
Websites ,
Willful Misconduct
As we noted in our recent post on the Second Circuit case Herrick v. Grindr, LLC, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) continues to provide immunity to online intermediaries from liability for user content,...more
A California Superior Court’s recent ruling in Murphy v. Twitter held that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act shielded Twitter from liability for suspending and banning a user’s account for violating the platform’s...more
As we have frequently noted on Socially Aware, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act protects social media sites and other online platforms from liability for user-generated content. Sometimes referred to as “the law...more
Often hailed as the law that gave us the modern Internet, Section 230 of the Communication Decency Act generally protects online platforms from liability for content posted by third parties. Many commentators, including us...more
As we have noted previously, the California Court of Appeal’s Hassell v. Bird decision in 2016 upholding an injunction requiring Yelp to remove certain user reviews was discouraging to social media companies and other online...more
Happy 2018 to our readers! It has become a Socially Aware tradition to start the New Year with some predictions from our editors and contributors. With smart contracts on the horizon, the Internet of Things and...more
1/6/2018
/ Blockchain ,
Communications Decency Act ,
Copyright ,
Copyright Litigation ,
Cryptocurrency ,
EU ,
Fair Use ,
General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) ,
Internet of Things ,
Online Advertisements ,
Patent Litigation ,
Privacy Policy ,
Safe Harbors ,
Smart Contracts ,
Token Sales ,
UK Brexit ,
Web Scraping
A federal appeals court in Miami held that a judge needn’t necessarily recuse herself from a case being argued by a lawyer with whom the judge is merely Facebook “friends.”...more
Welcome to the newest edition of Socially Aware, our Burton Awardwinning guide to the law and business of social media.
In this edition, we explore the threat to U.S. jobs posed by rapid advances in emerging technologies;...more
4/21/2017
/ Communications Decency Act ,
Copyright ,
Cross-Device ,
DMCA ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Google ,
Mobile Apps ,
Safe Harbors ,
Snapchat ,
Stored Communications Act ,
Technology Sector ,
Tracking Systems ,
Trump Administration ,
WhatsApp
The Decline and Fall of the Section 230 Safe Harbor? -
2016 was a tough year for a lot of reasons, most of which are outside the scope of this blog (though if you’d like to hear our thoughts about Bowie, Prince or...more
2/10/2017
/ Advertising ,
Communications Decency Act ,
Data Breach ,
Data Security ,
Email ,
EU ,
European Commission ,
Geo-Blocking ,
Microsoft ,
Safe Harbors ,
Section 230 ,
Social Media ,
Stored Communications Act ,
UK ,
UK Brexit ,
UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA)
We have been monitoring a trend of cases narrowing the immunity provided to website operators under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA). A recent decision by a state court in Georgia, however, demonstrates...more