JONES DAY PRESENTS®: Section 230: A Springboard to a First Amendment Discussion
New Developments in the World of Section 230
Trump vs. Twitter: The Feud Over Section 230 and Online Censorship
The SCAM Act- A new bipartisan bill — the Safeguarding Consumers from Advertising Misconduct (the SCAM Act) — could fundamentally change how social media companies run their ad businesses. Introduced on Feb. 4, 2026,...more
In a courthouse in Washington D.C., a landmark transatlantic legal battle is unfolding that could reshape how nations regulate online content across borders and determine the future of the UK’s Online Safety Act. Two US-based...more
A horrific new story hits our feeds every day. Social media platforms and other online spaces are drowning in a flood of abusive generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) content. Like with anything on the internet, users...more
This article is part of the “Defending the Algorithm™” series and was written by Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Insurance, Business and IP Trial Lawyer Christopher M. Jacobs, Esq. and was authored with research assistance from...more
If there’s one thing that became crystal clear in 2025, it’s that the internet, despite being more than thirty years old, still acts like a teenager much of the time. Not a charming one, not a misunderstood prodigy. A...more
On November 24, 2025, trade association NetChoice secured a win in its constitutional challenge to Maryland's Age-Appropriate Design Code Act (Kids Code or Act) when the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland denied...more
Last week, Massachusetts’ Supreme Judicial Court delved into a case with potentially national implications: should Meta platforms face a lawsuit alleging that Instagram’s design illegally hooks kids with addictive features?...more
Ohio’s new age-verification law for online adult content, which requires online platforms to limit certain users’ access to sensitive material, took effect on September 30, 2025. The statute, RC § 1349.10, asks covered...more
Key point: The court held that NetChoice’s complaint adequately states constitutional claims against Maryland’s age-appropriate design code act and allowed NetChoice’s lawsuit to continue but did not rule on the merits of the...more
The war over TikTok has many battle lines. A Biden era law that would have banned TikTok as of January 1, 2025 if it didn’t find a U.S. owner for its operations here was aimed at national security concerns. Congress passed...more
Colorado’s attempt to rein in teen screen time has met a familiar obstacle: the First Amendment. On November 6, 2025, U.S. District Judge William J. Martínez paused the state’s new social media warning law, finding that the...more
By the end of November, Character.AI will stop letting anyone under 18 chat freely with its bots. No more late-night conversations with virtual friends, no more two-hour therapy sessions with imaginary Freud. The company says...more
In August 2025, a pair of California parents filed suit in California state court against OpenAI (Raine v. OpenAI, Inc.) after the death of their teenage son, alleging that the company’s generative-language model played a...more
On September 30, Judge Edward Davila of the Northern District of California ruled that LinkedIn must face three lawsuits alleging that its Insight Tag tracking tool quietly collected sensitive information from users visiting...more
In the closing days of August, two federal appeals courts issued noteworthy decisions at the intersection of workplace conduct, computer law and online platforms. The two opinions were released during a period of time this...more
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has made clear that youth-focused social apps are a priority. On September 27, the FTC filed a complaint in the Central District of California against Iconic Hearts Holdings, the company...more
Online reviews can make or break a business. A stream of positive comments can boost visibility, attract new customers, and build trust. On the other hand, a single harsh or fake review can tarnish a company’s reputation...more
On May 19, President Donald Trump signed the Take It Down Act into law. The act will have an immediate impact on platform providers, which will be required to actively monitor and, in many cases, censor the speech of their...more
On July 28, 2025, a New York state appellate court ruled that Section 230 of the Communications Act of 1934 bars claims against online platforms based on user-generated content made accessible through the platforms'...more
On June 30, 2025, the Honorable Paul Goetz of the New York Supreme Court held that plaintiff Norma Nazario’s lawsuit for the death of her son in a 2023 “subway surfing” incident could proceed against social media companies...more
State governments, public school districts, and individuals are suing social media companies, such as TikTok and Snapchat, alleging that defects in their algorithms and platform features cause psychological and physical harm,...more
The TAKE IT DOWN Act, recently signed into federal law, criminalizes the distribution of nonconsensual intimate imagery and requires covered online platforms to implement a notice-and-removal process by May 19, 2026....more
On April 24, 2025, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) filed an unopposed motion in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit for voluntary dismissal of its appeal of an October 2024 decision finding that eBay is...more
As we move further into 2025, the artificial intelligence (AI) landscape continues to evolve at a rapid pace; indeed, nearly every week seems to bring news of another major AI breakthrough. In this post, we highlight the...more
A bipartisan Bill aiming to protect individuals from having their voice and visual likeness used without their consent was reintroduced in Congress earlier this month....more