Defamation

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A recent decision from a federal court in New York highlights the limits social media users enjoy under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA). The case involves Joy Reid, the popular host of MSNBC’s AM Joy who has more than two million Twitter and Instagram followers, and the interaction between a young Hispanic boy and a “Make America Great Again” (MAGA)–hat wearing woman named Roslyn La Liberte at a Simi Valley, California, City Council meeting.

The case centers on a single re-tweet by Reid and two of her Instagram posts.

Here is Reid’s re-tweet.

It says: “You are going to be the first deported” “dirty Mexican” Were some of the things they yelled at this 14 year old boy. He was defending immigrants at a rally and was shouted down.   

Spread this far and wide this woman needs to be put on blast.

 
 

Here is Reid’s first Instagram post from the same day.

It says: joyannreid He showed up to a rally to defend immigrants. … She showed up too, in her MAGA hat, and screamed, “You are going to be the first deported” … “dirty Mexican!” He is 14 years old. She is an adult. Make the picture black and white and it could be the 1950s and the desegregation of a school. Hate is real, y’all. It hasn’t even really gone away.…
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A federal district court in California has added to the small body of case law addressing whether it’s permissible for one party to use another party’s trademark as a hashtag. The court held that, for several reasons, the 9th Circuit’s nominative fair use analysis did not cover one company’s use of another company’s trademarks as…

An advertising executive who lost his job after being named on an anonymous Instagram account is suing the now-defunct account for defamation. The suit names as defendants not only the account—Diet Madison Avenue, which was intended to root out harassment and discrimination at ad agencies—but also (as “Jane Doe 1,” “Jane Doe 2,” et cetera)…

Based on copyright infringement, emotional distress and other claims, a federal district court in California awarded $6.4 million to a victim of revenge porn, the posting of explicit material without the subject’s consent. The judgment is believed to be one of the largest awards relating to revenge porn. A Socially Aware post that we wrote…

In a decision that has generated considerable controversy, a federal court in New York has held that the popular practice of embedding tweets into websites and blogs can result in copyright infringement. Plaintiff Justin Goldman had taken a photo of NFL quarterback Tom Brady, which Goldman posted to Snapchat. Snapchat users “screengrabbed” the image…

As we have noted previously, YouTube users sometimes object when the online video giant removes their videos based on terms-of-use violations, such as artificially inflated view counts. In a recent California case, Bartholomew v. YouTube, LLC, the court rejected a user’s claim that the statement YouTube posted after it removed her video, which allegedly gave the impression that the video contained offensive content, was defamatory.

Joyce Bartholomew is a musician who creates what she calls “original Christian ministry music.” Ms. Bartholomew produced a video for the song “What Was Your Name” and posted the video on YouTube in January 2014. YouTube assigned a URL to the video, which Ms. Bartholomew began sharing with her listeners and viewers. By April 2014, she claims that the video had amassed over 30,000 views.

Shortly afterwards, however, YouTube removed the video and replaced it with the image of a “distressed face” and the following removal statement: “This video has been removed because its content violated YouTube’s Terms of Service.” The removal statement also provided a hyperlink to YouTube’s “Community Guideline Tips,” which identifies 10 categories of prohibited content: “Sex and Nudity,” “Hate Speech,” “Shocking and Disgusting,” “Dangerous Illegal Acts,” “Children,” “Copyright,” “Privacy,” “Harassment,” “Impersonation” and “Threats.”…
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A defamation suit brought by one reality television star against another—and naming Discovery Communications as a defendant—could determine to what extent (if any) media companies may be held responsible for what their talent posts on social media.

In a move characterized as setting legal precedent, UK lawyers served an injunction against “persons unknown” via…

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A recent California court decision involving Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) is creating considerable concern among social media companies and other website operators.

As we’ve discussed in past blog posts, CDA Section 230 has played an essential role in the growth of the Internet by shielding website operators from defamation and…

The Newspaper Association of America has filed a first-of-its-kind complaint with the FTC over certain ad blocking technologies.

Is it “Internet” or “internet”? The Associated Press is about to change the capitalization rule.

Lots of people criticized Instagram’s new logo, but, according to a design-analysis app, it’s much better than the old logo at…

Positive I.D. The tech world recently took a giant step forward in the quest to create computers that accurately mimic human sensory and thought processes, thanks to Fei-Fei Li and Andrej Karpathy of the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. The pair developed a program that identifies not just the subjects of a photo, but the action…