meta: Suit against Meta, using a tech shield law, is dismissed

A federal judge on Thursday dismissed a suit brought by a professor who wants to build a tool that allows Facebook users to unfollow everyone in their feed. Ethan Zuckerman, who teaches public policy at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, had asked a federal court to rule that Meta, Facebook’s owner, couldn’t sue him if he went through with his plan.

Zuckerman and his lawyers, who work at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, were relying on a little-used portion of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a 1996 law that shields Meta and other tech giants from lawsuits over content posted by their users.

Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley of the US District Court for the Northern District of California granted Meta’s request to dismiss the lawsuit Thursday, according to court records. The judge said Zuckerman could refile the lawsuit at a later date.

“We’re disappointed the court believes Professor Zuckerman needs to code the tool before the court resolves the case,” said Ramya Krishnan, one of Zuckerman’s lawyers. “We continue to believe that Section 230 protects user-empowering tools, and look forward to the court considering that argument at a later time.”

A spokesperson for Meta pointed to an earlier statement by the company that called the lawsuit “baseless.”

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Zuckerman’s lawsuit was a novel salvo in a fight over who gets to control the experience on social media platforms. He wants to create a tool that will wipe a Facebook user’s feed clean. But Meta has previously sent a threatening legal letter to a software developer who released a similar tool. Zuckerman’s case hinged on a portion of Section 230 that protects the ability to restrict obscene or troublesome content, saying it should apply to any content that users don’t want to see.