Court Ignores That Texas Social Media Censorship Law Was Blocked As Unconstitutional: Orders Meta To Reinstate Account

Content Moderation

from the [gestures-to-lowest-common-denominator]-who-among-us dept

Remember how Texas passed a social media content moderation law which was then blocked as unconstitutional by a federal court? Apparently people in Texas remember the passing of the law, but not the fact that it was blocked. Incredibly, this includes a judge as well.

If it had been allowed to be come law, Texas’ new, batshit insane “social media censorship” law would have allowed all sorts of bizarre claims to be made in court and greatly increased the odds even the most ridiculous of complaints will result in at least a temporary win for aggrieved plaintiffs.  But, because it seems that everyone in a Texas court ignored the fact that the law has been blocked, we get to see how it all would have played out otherwise.

Welcome to the litigation party, Trump acolyte and would-be gubernatorial hopeful, Chad Prather. “Chad Whom?,” I hear you legitimately asking. Well, according to this Wikipedia article, Prather is “an American conservative political commentator, comedian and internet personality.” Whew.

He’s also attempting to unseat the current Texas governor, Greg Abbott — who is pretty much the same guy Prather is, only without the “comedian and internet personality” bio. Abbott is also a Trump acolyte and another fine argument for returning Texas to Mexico. Abbott has his own problems with so-called social media “censorship.” He has gone after Google and approved unconstitutional laws attempting to undermine Section 230 immunity and fully supports similar efforts proposed by others as idiotic and short-sighted as he is.

Chad Prather apparently feels Abbott is operating too far to the left, considering the governor is angling for a Facebook data center while spending a great deal of his ill-spent time seeking to undermine the legal protections that give idiots like Governor Abbott a sizable presence on sizable social media platforms.

Prather is now suing Facebook for suspending his account, under this new law (which, I remind you, has already been deemed unconstitutional and blocked from being put into effect) something he claims in a series of conclusory statements is obviously some sort of conspiracy between Meta and Governor Abbott to derail his attempt to unseat Abbott.

Thanks to Courthouse News Service — which always posts copies of legal documents it covers — we can read the inadvertently hilarious lawsuit [PDF] Prather has filed in a Texas county court. There are ways to be taken semi-seriously. And then there is what Prather has chosen to do: a series of conclusory statements tossed into a county court in hopes of using Texas’ shitty (again, already blocked as unconstitutional) new social media law to dodge well-settled moderation issues that have generated plenty of precedent in federal courts. That the law was blocked before it went into effect apparently doesn’t seem to matter to anyone involved in this lawsuit, which is just a little bit strange.

Let’s first take a look at the claims:

On February 21, 2022, just 8 days before the Election, Defendant suspended Prather from its Facebook social media platform for at least 7 days.

Facebook’s action against Prather severely inhibits his ability to communicate with potential voters and will cause immediate and irreparable harm by damaging his chances at winning the Election. There is no available remedy at law to Plaintiff for this interference with his ability to effectively campaign through social media.

Sure, there is. There are plenty of “available remedies,” starting with the inexplicably unpopular “more speech.” The plaintiff runs his own website. He also has apparently uninterrupted access to Parler, Twitter, and Instagram. Nevertheless, Prather insists this temporary inconvenience is not only actionable, but the direct result of collusion between Facebook and the state’s current governor:

It is likely no coincidence that Facebook chose to censor Prather so close to this hotly contested Election against Gov. Abbott. While publicly speaking out against censorship on social media, Gov. Abbott has been privately negotiating a deal with Facebook to bring the company’s new data center to Texas.

Is it likely, though? Prather has added communications between the governor and Facebook about the data center to his lawsuit (as exhibits), but fails to explain how this led Facebook to target his page for suspension. It certainly isn’t collusion. Prather doesn’t even register on the public’s radar, according to recent polls. Also, Prather seems to ignore that Gov. Abbott was a vocal supporter of this (unconstitutional and blocked by the courts) law that Prather is now trying to use… to claim that he was blocked to protect Gov. Abbott. Which, by itself should raise all sorts of questions.

Nonetheless, Prather insists he’s been beset upon all sides by powerful enemies.

The implications of this letter and the timing of Facebook’s censorship of Chad Prather should shock the conscience of this Court. Prather has a massive following on Facebook and has been a vocal critic of Gov. Abbott on his social media. It appears Facebook has likely censored a highly popular grassroots candidate for governor running against Gov. Abbott for the purpose of shoring up Abbott’s chances of winning the primary in order to protect Facebook’s pending deal with Gov. Abbott.

In other words, a California-based social media platform is actively interfering in the Texas gubernatorial elections to tip the scales in favor of the sitting governor of Texas who has just signed a law targeting them, so that he can give them a sweetheart business deal using taxpayer money. Sure. Uh huh. Makes sense.

Even if we assume these statements to be true (and we certainly don’t), what’s actionable here? Normally nothing would be. And here, nothing should be because the courts already blocked this law from going into effect. But Prather is trying to use the same law passed by the governor he now claims is colluding against him to bring this lawsuit against Facebook. This stupid law allows Texas residents to bring this completely stupid cause of action. Or it would if a court hadn’t blocked it. But, again, everyone seems to be ignoring that kind of important point.

Declaratory Relief for Social Media Censorship

And these are the sort of lawsuits this law would encourage, something Governor Abbott may come to regret (if the law actually is allowed to go into effect). After all, the law allows pretty much anyone to sue a social media service over any form of moderation they experience.

CPRC § 143A.002 provides: “(a) a social media platform may not censor a user, a user’s expression, or a user’s ability to receive the expression of another person based on: (1) the viewpoint of the user or another person; (2) the viewpoint represented in the user’s expression or another person’s expression; or (3) a user’s geographic location in this state or any part of this state.”

According to Prather’s filing, he was suspended over a direct message that was presumably reported as harassing by the recipient. That’s all it takes to trigger a lawsuit under Texas’ social media law. However, clearing this extremely low bar is not the same as credibly alleging collusion between the governor and Meta, which Prather has done here.

And it appears the court may have already sided with Prather, at least temporarily even though this law never went into effect.  Somehow, he has already secured a temporary restraining order [PDF] that tells Facebook to reinstate his account. The judge cites the new social media law even though the federal court already enjoined it as unconstitutional. It is unclear how this is even possible, though Prather and his lawyer, Paul Davis, who has made quite the name for himself as an insurrectionist lawyer who tried to sue to undo the entire 2020 Presidential election, are celebrating. I mean, to their credit, it is quite a feat to get an unconstitutional prior restraint ruling issued on a law that has already been declared unconstitutional and enjoined from being put into effect. So, kudos?

The garbage law has allowed a ridiculous person to force a private company to bend to his wishes — even though the law was not allowed to go into effect because of its unconstitutional nature. And Abbott’s hypocritical support of a law that undermines his belief the free market should not be fucked with has resulted in one of his political challengers having his account reinstated to be used as a megaphone to tout a lawsuit claiming the governor is in bed with Facebook. There are no winners here, just a bunch of losers who can’t handle being told to shut up by the free services they exploit.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, chad prather, content moderation, greg abbott, hb 20, hb20, paul davis, prior restraint, social media, temporary restraining order, texas
Companies: facebook, meta

Judge Easily Rejects Parler's Demands To Have Amazon Reinstate Parler

Legal Issues

from the nicely-done dept

As was totally expected, US district court judge, Barbara Jacobs Rothstein, has handily rejected Parler’s motion to force Amazon to turn Parler’s digital lights back on. The order is pretty short and sweet, basically saying that Parler hasn’t even remotely shown a likelihood of success in the case that would lead to having the court order Amazon to take the social media site back.

On the antitrust claims, the judge points out that these appear to be a figment of Parler’s imagination:

At this stage in the proceedings, Parler has failed to demonstrate that it is likely to succeed on the merits of its Sherman Act claim. While Parler has not yet had an opportunity to conduct discovery, the evidence it has submitted in support of the claim is both dwindlingly slight, and disputed by AWS. Importantly, Parler has submitted no evidence that AWS and Twitter acted together intentionally?or even at all?in restraint of trade….

Indeed, Parler has failed to do more than raise the specter of preferential treatment of Twitter by AWS. The sum of its allegation is that ?by pulling the plug on Parler but leaving Twitter alone despite identical conduct by users on both sites, AWS reveals that its expressed reasons for suspending Parler?s account are but pretext.?… But Parler and Twitter are not similarly situated, because AWS does not provide online hosting services to Twitter. Parler?s unsupported allegation that ?AWS provides online hosting services to both Parler and Twitter? is explicitly denied in a sworn declaration by an AWS executive…. (?Twitter?s principal social-media service (the ?Twitter Feed?) does not run on AWS. . . . On December 15, 2020, AWS announced that it signed an agreement with Twitter for AWS to begin servicing the Twitter Feed for the first time. . . . We do not yet service the Twitter Feed, and I am not aware of any particular timeline for doing so.?). Thus, as AWS asserts, ?it could not have suspended access to Twitter?s content? because ?it does not host Twitter.?

For what it’s worth the judge doesn’t even note the other huge weakness in Parler’s “antitrust claims.” I had intended to write a post about this, but now that this order is out, that post may be moot: Parler’s CEO in his own declaration undermined the entirety of the antitrust claim by admitting that there were at least half a dozen other “large” cloud providers beyond Amazon. It’s true that none of them wanted to do business with Parler, but it sort of highlights that there’s competition in the market:

Parler reached out to at least six extremely large potential providers? all of which refused to host Parler for one of two reasons.

The “strongest” (and I use that term in the sense of the “tallest of the ants” meaning) of the claims was probably the breach of contract claim, in which Parler said AWS’s terms require 30 days notice for termination. As we wrote, however, the terms also allow for a suspension of service in much less time, and Amazon insists that Parler’s service was suspended rather than terminated. The judge, not surprisingly, did read the whole of the terms of service, rather than just the convenient bit Parler’s lawyer wanted her to read:

Parler has not denied that content posted on its platform violated the terms of the CSA and the AUP; it claims only that AWS failed to provide notice to Parler that Parler was in breach, and to give Parler 30 days to cure, as Parler claims is required per Section 7.2(b)(i). However, Parler fails to acknowledge, let alone dispute, that Section 7.2(b)(ii)?the provision immediately following?authorizes AWS to terminate the Agreement ?immediately upon notice? and without providing any opportunity to cure ?if [AWS has] the right to suspend under Section 6.? And Section 6 provides, in turn, that AWS may ?suspend [Parler?s or its] End User?s right to access or use any portion or all of the Service Offerings immediately upon notice? for a number of reasons, including if AWS determines that Parler is ?in breach of this Agreement.? In short, the CSA gives AWS the right either to suspend or to terminate, immediately upon notice, in the event Parler is in breach.

Parler has not denied that at the time AWS invoked its termination or suspension rights under Sections 4, 6 and 7, Parler was in violation of the Agreement and the AUP. It has therefore failed, at this stage in the proceedings, to demonstrate a likelihood of success on its breach of contract claim.

Then there’s the intentional interference claim, which almost never flies, because it’s almost always just an attempt to repeat earlier claims with a “and this is serious.” Here, it’s just pathetic. And the judge knows that.

Parler has failed to allege basic facts that would support several elements of this claim. Most fatally, as discussed above, it has failed to raise more than the scantest speculation that AWS?s actions were taken for an improper purpose or by improper means. Conversely, AWS has denied it acted improperly, justifying its actions as a lawful exercise of rights it had pursuant to either the suspension or the termination provisions of the CSA. Further, for the reasons outlined supra, §§ III.B.(1) & (2), Parler has failed to demonstrate the likelihood that AWS breached the CSA. To the contrary, the evidence at this point suggests that AWS?s termination of the CSA was in response to Parler?s material breach. Parler has therefore not demonstrated a likelihood of success on this claim.

The judge does admit that Parler may be right that there are irreparable harms here, but its failure to plead a winnable case means that doesn’t much matter. Finally, there’s an interesting paragraph on the public interest arguments in the case:

The Court explicitly rejects any suggestion that the balance of equities or the public interest favors obligating AWS to host the kind of abusive, violent content at issue in this case, particularly in light of the recent riots at the U.S. Capitol. That event was a tragic reminder that inflammatory rhetoric can?more swiftly and easily than many of us would have hoped?turn a lawful protest into a violent insurrection. The Court rejects any suggestion that the public interest favors requiring AWS to host the incendiary speech that the record shows some of Parler?s users have engaged in. At this stage, on the showing made thus far, neither the public interest nor the balance of equities favors granting an injunction in this case.

Separately, it’s worth noting that the judge called out the fact that this is not a case about free speech or the 1st Amendment, as some have tried to frame it:

It is important to note what this case is not about. Parler is not asserting a violation of any First Amendment rights, which exist only against a governmental entity, and not against a private company like AWS. And indeed, Parler has not disputed that at least some of the abusive and violent posts that gave rise to the issues in this case violate AWS?s Acceptable Use Policy.

Overall, the ruling was basically exactly what most people were expecting. The case still moves on, for now, as this was just rejecting the request for a temporary restraining order (effectively forcing Amazon to rehost Parler). But I would imagine this does not bode well for the next step, which is likely a motion to dismiss the entire lawsuit from Amazon, which the judge seems likely to grant on similar grounds as was used for this ruling.

Filed Under: antitrust, aws, breach of contract, temporary restraining order
Companies: amazon, parler, twitter

Judge Rejects Epic's Temporary Restraining Order Request For Fortnite (But Grants It For The Unreal Engine)

Legal Issues

from the and-so-it-goes dept

On Monday there was a… shall we say… contentious first hearing in the antitrust fight/contract negotiation between Apple and Epic over what Apple charges (and what it charges for…) in the iOS app store. The issue for the hearing was Epic’s request for temporary restraining orders against Apple on two points: first, it wanted a restraining order that would force Apple to return Fortnite to the app store. Second, was a restraining order on Apple’s plan to basically pull Epic’s developer license for the wider Unreal Engine.

As the judge made pretty clear would happen during the hearing, she rejected the TRO for Fortnite, but allowed it for the Unreal Engine. The shortest explanation: Apple removed Fortnite because of a move by Epic. So Epic was the cause of the removal. The threat to pull access for the Unreal Engine, however, seemed punitive in response to the lawsuit, and not for any legitimate reason.

More specifically, for a TRO to issue, the key issue is irreparable harm (i.e., you can get one if you can show that without one there will be harm that can’t be easily repaired through monetary or other sanctions). But here, as the court notes, Epic, not Apple, created the first mess, and so it can fix it by complying with the contract. So there is no irreparable harm, since it can solve the issue. The opposite is true of the Unreal Engine, though:

The Court finds that with respect to Epic Games? motion as to its games, including Fortnite, Epic Games has not yet demonstrated irreparable harm. The current predicament appears of its own making. See Second City Music, 333 F.3d at 850 (?Only the injury inflicted by one?s adversary counts for this purpose.?). Epic Games remains free to maintain its agreements with Apple in breach status as this litigation continues, but as the Seventh Circuit recognized in Second City Music, ?[t]he sensible way to proceed is for [Epic to comply with the agreements and guidelines] and continue to operate while it builds a record.? Id. ?Any injury that [Epic Games] incurs by following a different course is of its own choosing.? Id. Epic Games admits that the technology exists to ?fix? the problem easily by deactivating the ?hotfix.? That Epic Games would prefer not to litigate in that context does not mean that ?irreparable harm? exists.

By contrast, Epic Games has made a preliminary showing of irreparable harm as to Apple?s actions related to the revocation of the developer tools (SDKs). The relevant agreement, the Apple Xcode and Apple SDKs Agreement, is a fully integrated document that explicitly walls off the developer program license agreement. (See Dkt. No. 41-21 at 16.) Apple?s reliance on its ?historical practice? of removing all ?affiliated? developer accounts in similar situations or on broad language in the operative contract at issue here can be better evaluated with full briefing. For now, Epic International appears to have separate developer program license agreements with Apple and those agreements have not been breached. Moreover, Apple is hard-pressed to dispute that even if Epic Games succeeded on the merits, it could be too late to save all the projects by third-party developers relying on the engine that were shelved while support was unavailable. Indeed, such a scenario would likely lead to nebulous, hard-to-quantify questions, such as, how successful these other projects might have been, and how much in royalties would have been generated, much less the collateral damage to the third-party developers themselves.

This same analysis effectively shows up on the other issues, such as the “balance of equities” question:

… the Court observes that Epic Games strategically chose to breach its agreements with Apple which changed the status quo. No equities have been identified suggesting that the Court should impose a new status quo in favor of Epic Games. By contrast, with respect to the Unreal Engine and the developer tools, the Court finds the opposite result. In this regard, the contracts related to those applications were not breached. Apple does not persuade that it will be harmed based on any restraint on removing the developer tools.

None of this is all that surprising, but it certainly suggests that the judge is not being distracted by Epic turning this whole thing into an anti-Apple marketing campaign.

Filed Under: antitrust, fortnite, temporary restraining order, tro
Companies: apple, epic

Chinese Billionaire Got A US Court To Issue An Unconstitutional Gag Order On A Critic

Free Speech

from the this-is-bad dept

Eugene Volokh has an incredible — and incredibly disturbing — story about how Jia Yueting, a Chinese billionaire, appears to have convinced a Washington state court to issue an unconstitutional gag order against a critic who lives in Washington state. Jia is famous for his company LeEco in China, as well as his attempt to create an electric car giant competitor to Tesla in the US called Faraday Future. Almost exactly a year ago, we wrote about how Faraday Future was flailing with a series of incredible stories leaking out of the company. A large number of top execs were fleeing the company and there were reports of questionable activities, including Jia demanding that Faraday Future employees design a car for LeEco, without payment or credit. In the past year, it does not appear that things have gotten much better for Jia, and he was just ordered to return to China to deal with debts that appear to be piling up.

China has ordered a tech tycoon to come home and face the music.

The country’s markets watchdog on Monday demanded LeEco founder Jia Yueting return to China before the end of the year to fix his business empire’s financial woes.

The China Securities Regulatory Commission said that Jia, whose whereabouts are unknown, has not made good on earlier promises to provide interest-free loans to the embattled company.

Not surprisingly, there are many online critics of Jia. One of them is a resident of Washington state, named Yingqiong Gu who criticized Jia on WeChat, the ever-present social network/communications app that is insanely popular in China. Back in October, Jia sued Gu to try to get the criticism to stop. As Volokh notes, it is entirely possible that Gu made defamatory statements about Jia. But the First Amendment tends to reject any attempt to silence speech. While some states will allow injunctions against defamatory speech, that tends to be only after the content has been determined by a court to actually be defamatory. Here, however, the court agreed first to a temporary restraining order less than a week after the complaint was filed, and a preliminary injunction a few weeks later.

Now, some of what’s described in the complaint goes beyond speech, and includes what could be considered harassing behavior:

Defendant has further followed Mr. Jia while he goes about his daily activities, including investor meetings Mr. Jia attends and the Los Angeles-area restaurants he has visited. Finally, Defendant has identified and publicized sensitive personal information, including Mr. Jia’s current address and photos of his family.

I’m not sure if that’s enough to constitute “harassing” behavior, but maybe. If the restraining order were limited to that, perhaps it would be acceptable. But it appears the real target of the gag order is to silence Gu and his criticism of Jia. Here’s the crux of Jia’s complaint:

Defendant has been publishing defamatory statements concerning Plaintiff on social media platforms and to journalists, in an effort to harm Mr. Jia’s reputation and sow distrust among potential investors and employees of Faraday while Mr. Jia is in the process of trying to raise capital to fund Faraday’s continued growth. These defamatory statements include claims that Plaintiff has engaged in money laundering, cheated investors as part of a Ponzi scheme, attempted to evade Chinese authorities by relocating to the United States, created shelters to protect assets from creditors, and raised money from Chinese-national investors in a purported racist scheme to transfer wealth to non-Chinese individuals. The publication of these false statements has harmed Mr. Jia’s and Faraday’s reputation at a critical time for the company as it continues to raise capital needed to begin mass production of its vehicles.

The filing in Washington follows on a similar filing Jia made against Gu in California, in which another temporary restraining order was put in place against Gu’s apparent “harassing, harmful activities.” Jia’s complaint in Washington claims that Gu is violating that order because he “continued to publish defamatory statements.” But, again, speech and actions are not the same. Publishing criticism is not harassment, and if the content has not yet been judged to be defamatory, a court can’t block it.

But it did.

The restraining order is quite broad. Rather than just barring any harassing activities it orders Gu to remove content he’s posted:

Defendant, including his agents, employees, or representatives or anyone acting on their behalf, are required to immediately remove posts on WeChat.com that contain defamatory statements concerning Plaintiff and/or reveal private information concerning Plaintiff and his family…

And it blocks him from writing more:

Defendant including his agents, employees or representatives or anyone acting on their behalf, are further enjoined from publishing or causing to be published any posts or commentary concerning Plaintiff or his family on WeChat.com, TouTiao.com or any other internet location or website.

That language was in the requested TRO. There’s a handwritten, barely legible, exception which states that he can post “objective facts from public records” but “may not include any commentary, editorial comments, or other statements that attack plaintiff’s credibility or reputation.”

That already appears to be unconstitutional. Commentary and editorial comments that attack someone’s credibility or reputation can be perfectly protected free speech — such as if they are true or are based on stated evidence. It is blatantly unconstitutional for a judge to order someone to stop attacking someone’s credibility if those attacks are not defamatory. Even worse, in the preliminary injunction, the judge even removes the exception for posting “objective facts from public records.”

As Volokh notes, this is problematic. While some courts will allow injunctive relief against defamatory speech, it first has to be shown to be defamatory, and then can only apply to that specific speech. The order here goes way beyond that:

Here, there was no trial, no “final determination” and no “decision on the merits” ? only a judgment of likelihood of success on the merits following a 15-to-20-minute-long hearing. I don’t think it’s permissible to order someone in such a situation to take down criticism of a prominent businessman’s business practices (criticism that might ultimately be proved false, proved true, or found to be opinion).

And this is concerning a well known public figure. We’ve talked a lot about how the powerful and wealthy are abusing the court systems to silence critics. The courts should not be helping.

Filed Under: criticism, first amendment, free speech, gag order, injunction, jia yueting, temporary restraining order, yingqiong gu
Companies: faraday future, leeco

Judge Decides Free Speech Is Still A Right; Dumps Prior Restraint Order Against Mattress Review Site

Free Speech

from the hearing-from-both-sides:-it's-a-thing dept

A couple of weeks ago, a federal judge in Utah decided prior restraint was the best way to handle a recently-filed defamation suit against Honest Mattress Reviews by Purple Innovations, makers of the Purple Mattress.

Purple’s lengthy filing contained numerous allegations of harm caused by Honest Mattress Reviews’ extended commentary on the white plastic powder covering every mattress Purple ships. It also alleged HMR was just a front for site owner Ryan Monahan’s brand management work with Purple’s competitor, Ghostbed. Rather than give HMR a chance to respond, the judge decided the review site could publish nothing further about Purple or the lawsuit. It wasn’t even allowed to refer to its previous rating of Purple’s mattress.

Honest Mattress Review didn’t care much for this decision — one it had been given no chance to contest. It immediately posted an article about the case and offered to comply with the letter of the order, but perhaps not its spirit.

This temporary order commands that we take down all reviews, and even cease rating this company with a rating of “Poor.” Yes, indeed, we are no longer even permitted to rate this company as Poor. I guess we will change its rating to “💩.”

[…]

Do you trust a company that, rather than compete in the marketplace, decides that it will just try and sue negative reviews out of existence?

Purple Innovations immediately returned to court, demanding it find HMR in contempt of its order, in particular pointing to the poo emoji and HMR’s claims about the unconstitutionality of the order and Purple’s alleged disingenuousness in filing the libel suit.

That review has since been reinstated and given this header image.

And HMR has published a long list of court documents it has filed in this case. This includes a motion to dissolve the restraining order and a preliminary examination of the powdery substance Purple claims is harmless and that HMR claims could be hazardous to purchasers’ health.

In the motion [PDF] to dissolve the order, attorney Marc Randazza points out that fashioning a libel lawsuit as a tortious interference lawsuit doesn’t change the ultimate goal of the litigation: to silence criticism.

The action is a quintessential SLAPP suit designed to suppress negative consumer journalism. Plaintiffs have cleverly attempted to disguise this defamation claim as a Lanham Act claim – presumably to ensure the availability of Federal Court jurisdiction and to try to side-step the clear case law that cuts against them in defamation actions. But, no matter how eloquently someone may call a “dog” a “chicken,” it will never lay eggs. And styling a specious defamation claim as a Lanham Act claim does not remove the underlying speech from the protections afforded by the First Amendment.

He also points out that Purple’s claims that the plastic packing dust is harmless haven’t been supported by anything Purple’s willing to let customers and competitors view. Instead, it’s only made vague assertions about its safety. And those statements are ultimately meaningless when examined closely.

Plaintiff sells mattresses that are made of a rubber honeycomb, which they then dust with a powder that they claim is made of plastic and has been shown to be polyethylene microspheres. In other words, someone who sleeps on these mattresses would be expected to inhale these microspheres. The Plaintiff claims that it is “non toxic” and “food grade” plastic – but this does not assuage the concerns. After all, a plastic fork is “food grade” and “non toxic” but you most certainly would not want to actually eat it. The same goes for what a person wants to put in their lungs. It was reasonable to be concerned about this “plastic powder” since (a) if the particles that make up this plastic “powder” are of a certain size, they will pass through the alveoli into the bloodstream; or (b) if they are a bit larger, they will simply lodge themselves inside the lungs.

To support its claims, HMR put a Harvard Professor of Pathology to work. Dr. John Godleski’s report [PDF] is far from complete at this point, but what’s contained in his preliminary examination of the powder doesn’t appear to agree with Purple’s assertions of harmlessness.

By Fourier Transformed Infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), the white powder particles were shown to be polyethylene, and the purple frame was found to be polyethylene-polypropylene copolymer. The foam portion of the mattress is still understudy, but has characteristics of butadiene, and may be a form of butadiene polymer.

Polyethylene is a common plastic formed into many structures. As inhalable microspheres, these have the potential to cause respiratory irritation especially when inhaled in large numbers as shown in my laboratory (1- 4). In addition, polyethylene has been associated with allergy in the form of either asthma or contact dermatitis in sensitized individuals (5-7). Based on this assessment, it is important for consumers to be aware of the composition of this fine particulate matter in the mattress which may be released into the air and has the potential for the development of respiratory or dermal hypersensitivity in some individuals.

Also included in the filed documents is an affidavit that undercuts Purple’s claims about HMR’s site owner being a competitor’s “brand manager.” This is central to Purple’s Lanham Act claims — the claims it’s using to sidestep anti-SLAPP motions. The affidavit from the competitor (Ghostbed) notes HMR’s site owner has never been directly employed by Ghostbed and that Ghostbed told him to stop referring to himself as its “brand manager” after noticing that statement on his Twitter profile.

The judge presiding over the case appears to have been overwhelmed by the pile of documents landing on his desk. A short order [PDF] issued on the 15th shows what can happen when a normally adversarial process is allowed to be, you know, adversarial.

For the reasons set forth in the parties’ briefing and at oral argument, the court finds a lack of “clear and unequivocal” support for a right to relief that is necessary for the entry of the “extraordinary remedy” of a preliminary injunction. Greater Yellowstone Coal v. Flowers, 321 F.3d 1250, 1256 (10th Cir. 2003). As such, the court hereby grants Defendants’ motions to dissolve the Temporary Restraining Order (Dkt. No. 36), and denies Plaintiff’s oral Motion to convert the Temporary Restraining Order into a Preliminary Injunction. The court similarly denies Plaintiff’s Motion for Leave to Conduct Expedited Discovery (Dkt. No. 39) and Motion for Order to Show Cause Why Defendants Should not be Held in Contempt (Dkt. No. 17). The court further denies Defendants’ request for sanctions, finding that such sanctions are not warranted here.

The restraining order is lifted and HMR’s turd-laced post isn’t in danger of being found contemptuous. The lawsuit should continue in a more constitutional fashion from this point forward.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, free speech, mattress reviews, prior restraint, ryan monahan, temporary restraining order
Companies: honest mattress reviews, honest reviews, purple innovation

Roca Labs Quickly Agrees To (Temporarily) Stop Questionable Marketing Claims & Drop Gag Clause

Legal Issues

from the that-was-quick dept

So that didn’t take long at all. Following the FTC officially taking Roca Labs to court over its deceptive marketing practices and its ridiculous gag clause barring anyone from complaining about Roca Labs, the company has already agreed to a temporary restraining order, saying that it will stop both things for now. Normally, if you have even half a case, you’d fight the temporary restraining order, but here it took basically a day for Roca Labs to say, “Okay, we’ll stop all that stuff.” That doesn’t mean the company won’t fight back going forward, but it certainly suggests that the company may realize how much trouble it’s in.

Filed Under: don juravin, false advertising, ftc, gag clause, temporary restraining order, tro
Companies: roca labs

Google Files Legal Challenge To Attorney General Jim Hood's Subpoenas

Legal Issues

from the well,-well dept

This story sure escalated in a hurry. Following all the news of the MPAA’s tight relationship with Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood, Google has made a filing in a Mississippi federal court seeking seeking a temporary restraining order and an injunction against Hood’s investigation. As the filing notes:

For the last eighteen months, the Mississippi Attorney General has threatened to prosecute, sue, or investigate Google unless it agrees to block from its search engine, YouTube video-sharing site, and advertising systems, third-party content (i.e., websites, videos, or ads not created by Google) that the Attorney General deems objectionable. When Google did not agree to his demands, the Attorney General retaliated, issuing an enormously burdensome subpoena and asserting that he now has ?reasonable grounds to believe? that Google has engaged in ?deceptive? or ?unfair? trade practice under the Mississippi Consumer Protection Act (MCPA), which allows for both civil and criminal sanctions. The Attorney General did so despite having publicly acknowledged in a letter to Congressional leaders that ?federal law prevents State and local law enforcement agencies from prosecuting? Internet platforms. The Attorney General took these actions following a sustained lobbying effort from the Motion Picture Association of America.

As Google explains, there is no legal basis for this investigation:

First, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (?CDA?) precludes state regulation of Google based upon the third-party content available on its services or the manner in which Google moderates that content. ?Congress provided broad immunity under the CDA to Web-based service providers for all claims stemming from their publication of information created by third parties.? Doe v. MySpace, Inc., 528 F.3d 413, 418 (5th Cir. 2008).

Second, the First Amendment protects Google?s organization and display of third-party information (e.g., search results), prohibits retaliation for how it organizes and displays such content, and bars state action that limits public access to constitutionally-protected speech. As multiple courts have found, the state can no more tell a search engine what results to publish than it can tell a newspaper what editorials to run. See, e.g., Jian Zhang v. Baidu.com Inc., 10 F. Supp. 3d 433, 436, 438 (S.D.N.Y. 2014). Nor can the state ?encourag[e] the suppression of speech in a manner which can reasonably be interpreted as intimating that some form of punishment or adverse regulatory action will follow the failure to accede to the official?s request.? Zieper v. Metzinger, 474 F.3d 60, 65-66 (2d Cir. 2007) (internal quotation marks omitted).

Third, the subpoena violates the Fourth Amendment by demanding information about conduct that is plainly lawful. ?[I]nvestigations premised solely upon legal activity are the very type of ?fishing expeditions? that? the Supreme Court has held violate the Fourth Amendment and ?do[] not pass muster under any standard.? Major League Baseball v. Crist, 331 F.3d 1177, 1187-88 (11th Cir. 2003) (citations omitted).

Fourth, much of the Attorney General?s subpoena is preempted by the Copyright Act or the Food, Drug and Cosmetics Act (?FDCA?). Many of the Attorney General?s inquiries concern copyright infringement?but copyright is exclusively a matter of federal law, which the Attorney General may not enforce and with which Google fully complies. See GlobeRanger Corp. v. Software AG, 691 F.3d 702, 705-06 (5th Cir. 2012). Similarly, the Subpoena seeks information about Google?s practices ten years ago with regard to advertisements relating to the importation of prescription drugs. But the FDCA regulates importation of prescription drugs and preempts enforcement actions not brought ?by and in the name of the United States.? 21 U.S.C. § 337. omitted).

In short, Jim Hood is on a massive fishing expedition over things he doesn’t understand, over which he has no jurisdiction, for issues where Google fully complies with the law. The filing further notes that, yes, there is bad content on the internet, but that Google actually is extraordinarily active in pushing it down in its search results and seeking to stop people from accessing that content. But, its voluntary efforts are very different from being required to change its search results via an order from a government official:

But if a state Attorney General can punish, irrespective of well-established federal law, any search engine or video-sharing platform whenever he finds third-party content he deems objectionable, search engines and video-sharing platforms cannot operate in their current form. They would instead have to pre-screen the trillions of websites and millions of videos on the Internet, blocking anything they had not yet reviewed from being publicly accessible so as to avoid the ire of even a single state or local regulator. This would ?severely restrict the information available on the Internet,? Batzel v. Smith, 333 F.3d 1018, 1027-28 (9th Cir. 2003), precisely the opposite of the ?unfettered? Internet the CDA and the First Amendment protect. The Attorney General may prefer a pre-filtered Internet?but the Constitution and Congress have denied him the authority to mandate it.

Google further lists out the various threats and statements Hood has made:

In several letters to Google, the Attorney General has falsely accused it of, among other things, ?aiding and abetting? and even ?encourag[ing] . . . illegal activity.? Id. Ex. 5 at 3. He has characterized Google as an ?accessory before the fact? in criminal conduct, id. Ex. 2 at 1, asserted it has ?no corporate conscience for the safety of its customers,? id. Ex. 17 at 1, and claimed that Google ?facilitates and profits from numerous illegal online activities,? id. Ex. 17 at 2. See also id. Ex. 15 at 3 (page 1 of the draft letter). He has threatened to ?take legal action to change [Google?s] behavior,? id. Ex. 2 at 3, outlining ?[p]ossible [c]auses of [a]ction? against Google in a presentation to the National Association of Attorneys General (?NAAG?), id. Ex. 10 at 53-57, sending numerous requests for information, see, e.g., id. Exs. 1, 5, & 22, and a broad litigation hold notice, id. Ex. 8. The Attorney General has demanded in several meetings that Google pre-screen or block third-party content and search results that merely may involve illegal activity, even at the cost of burdening lawful, protected speech. See, e.g., id. Ex. 2 at 2; id. Ex. 22 at 2; id. Ex. 27 at 5:13-6:24, 7:16-8:14. He has even sought a ?24-hour link through which attorneys general[]? can request that links to particular websites be removed from search results ?within hours,? presumably without judicial review or an opportunity for operators of the target websites to be heard. Id. Ex. 5 at 3.

That last one is crazy. Hood is flat out demanding a tool for government officials to censor the internet, based solely on those officials’ requests.

The Attorney General has cited no evidence at all of misconduct by Google to back up these inflammatory allegations. He has instead identified a handful of web pages among the trillions reflected in Google?s index, and a smattering of videos amongst the millions of hours watched every month on YouTube, and asserted that some of the content of those websites and videos (all created by third parties) is unlawful…. He has noted that advertising occasionally appears alongside the videos about which he complains…. And he has criticized some of Autocomplete?s algorithmically-generated predictions.

Whatever that says about the actions of those who created and developed the content about which the Attorney General complains, it in no way implies that Google has violated the law. Given the vast quantity of third-party content available on the Internet, it is no surprise that some small percentage of the information found via Search or posted on YouTube is inappropriate or unlawful. Statutes such as the CDA and DMCA accept the inevitability of problematic content online as the cost of a free and open Internet, and squarely immunize Google and other interactive service providers from liability arising from such third-party content.

Furthermore, Google debunks the notion that it has done nothing to deal with such sites:

Nevertheless, Google has worked to address the Attorney General?s concerns…. In response to his questions, Google provided over one-hundred pages of written answers detailing its policies and practices for voluntarily combating abuse across its services, and voluntary shared nearly 100,000 pages of supporting documents. YouTube engineers even created a custom reporting tool and trained the Attorney General?s office on how to use it so that they could report for expedited review and possible removal videos they deemed objectionable…. To date, over half a year later, the Attorney General has used this tool to report only seven videos…. Nor, to the best of Google?s knowledge, has the Attorney General filed any legal action against any of the actual creators of the specific underlying content to which he has objected. Google has also explained the applicability of CDA immunity and the DMCA safe-harbor provisions to services like Google, as well as the constitutional concerns raised by his demands

That part I bolded is the key. It shows the reality of the situation, which is that Hood isn’t really trying to stop bad content online, no matter how many times he argues otherwise — he’s just attacking Google.

There’s much more in the filing, including arguing that Hood is violating the First Amendment directly in his most recent subpoena to Google:

The Attorney General has made clear that he disagrees with how Google exercises editorial judgment in the composition of its search results and YouTube content, and wishes to force Google to adopt editorial judgments that he would prefer. For content he disfavors, he asks that Google censor from search results links to websites that are readily available on the Internet, regardless of whether any court has found them unlawful, and has even gone so far as to demand that certain search terms themselves be banned…. The Attorney General has also demanded that links to disfavored content be demoted in search rankings and marked with a warning to users…. Conversely, he has asked Google to promote favored content (e.g., Hollywoodapproved websites) by raising its standing in search results and indicating its favored status with an icon…. Such demands by a government official to displace a private party?s editorial judgment in order to favor certain speech or speakers over others strike at the heart of the First Amendment.

And, of course, just because some of the content targeted may not be protected, that doesn’t relieve the First Amendment problems:

State enforcement actions targeting unprotected speech can violate the First Amendment by limiting the ?public?s access to constitutionally protected matter.? Smith v. People of California, 361 U.S. 147, 153 (1959). A state may not penalize a bookseller for unknowingly offering obscene material because he would then ?tend to restrict the books he sells to those he has inspected,? and the limits on his ability to inspect content would ?tend to restrict the public?s access to [content] which the State could not constitutionally suppress directly.? …. Similarly, a state may not sanction a magazine for unknowingly publishing unlawful advertisements because ?publishers cannot practicably be expected to investigate each of their advertisers,? and the risk of sanction could lead a publisher to reject advertisements that ?could conceivably be deemed objectionable by the [government],? which would deprive the public of access to protected speech, and the potential advertisers an ?avenue of access to the public.? MANual Enters., Inc. v. Day, 370 U.S. 478, 493 (1962).

There’s a lot more in there, but those are some of the high points. Hood has been provoking Google (at the behest of the MPAA and others) for a long time. It appears that Google has hit back.

Filed Under: copyright, dmca, first amendment, fourth amendment, free speech, injunction, jim hood, secondary liability, section 230, subpoena, temporary restraining order
Companies: google, mpaa

Who Needs SOPA? US Court Wipes Sites From The Internet For 'Infringement' Without Even Alerting Sites In Question

Copyright

from the that's-not-how-the-law-works dept

TorrentFreak has the exceptionally troubling story of a federal district court in Oregon issuing an incredibly broad and questionable order, effectively wiping a bunch of websites out, without ever letting the websites in question know that they were being “tried” in court. The request came from ABS-CBN, a giant Filipino entertainment company arguing infringement, of course. But the argument against these sites is somewhat questionable already, made worse by the demand that the whole thing be done under seal (without alerting the site operators). Then Judge Anna Brown granted the temporary restraining order, basically deleting these sites from the internet, without even a sniff of an adversarial hearing.

You may recall that the entertainment industry insisted that SOPA was needed for exactly these cases — overseas sites they claimed were “rogue” sites dealing in infringement. They claimed there was no way to take them down. And, even SOPA had more limitations than what Judge Brown allowed here. If you have rogue judges like Brown issuing orders like this, who needs SOPA. It’s already in place in her view of the world.

The complaint itself is raising some questions, as it makes long-debunked claims such as saying that the sites use of “meta tags” boost how the sites show up in search engines. That may have been true in the 90s, but it hasn’t been true for over a decade, at least. Further, the complaint argues that the site operators have some sort of proactive requirement to “implement means to prevent infringement,” but the law requires no such tools or filters — only that the sites properly respond to takedown notices for copyright infringement (trademark is a bit different, but the trademark claims here are also quite weak).

The filing was done under seal based on the bogus excuse that if the sites operators were alerted they might be “tipped off” that something was happening and make an effort to prevent the sites from being shut down. We’ll get into why that goes against Supreme Court precedent and the First Amendment in a moment, but first let’s look at how broad and ridiculous the actual restraining order is. The judge grants the restraining order against the defendants ordering them to stop making use of ABS-CBN trademarks and copyrights, which isn’t too surprising. But then stretches the order to include tons of non-parties to the lawsuit:

Upon Plaintiffs’ request, those with actual notice of the injunction, including any Internet search engines, Web hosts, domain-name registrars, and domain name registreies or their administrators, shall cease facilitating access to any or all domain names and websites through which Defendants engage in the (i) copying, distribution, performance, and promotion of Plaintiffs’ copyrighted works andor broadcast content or (ii) use of the ABS-CBN Marks

It also orders domain registrars to hand over the domains to ABS-CBN and to block further transfers. Again, all of this is done without ever notifying the defendants, who are named as Jeffrey Ashby, Lenie Ashby and a bunch of Does operating a variety of domain names.

The ruling is extremely questionable. The whole reason why the entertainment industry pushed so hard for SOPA was because they knew you couldn’t pull a stunt like this. It seems that Judge Brown doesn’t know about this or doesn’t care. That’s what happens when you only hear one side of an argument in a case. However, as we’ve discussed in the past, such one sided rulings that shut down entire websites with no notice to the operators of those websites, are illegal under the Supreme Court’s ruling in Fort Wayne Books v. Indiana. When it comes to any sort of expressive content, the court held that seizing the content prior to an adversarial hearing violates the First Amendment:

In a line of cases dating back to Marcus v. Search Warrant, 367 U. S. 717 (1961), this Court has repeatedly held that rigorous procedural safeguards must be employed before expressive materials can be seized as “obscene.” In Marcus, and again in A Quantity of Copies of Books v. Kansas, 378 U. S. 205 (1964), the Court invalidated large-scale confiscations of books and films, where numerous copies of selected books were seized without a prior adversarial hearing on their obscenity. In those cases, and the ones that immediately came after them, the Court established that pretrial seizures of expressive materials could only be undertaken pursuant to a “procedure `designed to focus searchingly on the question of obscenity.’ ” Id., at 210 (quoting Marcus, supra, at 732). See also, e. g., Lee Art Theatre, Inc. v. Virginia, 392 U. S. 636 (1968).

We refined that approach further in our subsequent decisions. Most importantly, in Heller v. New York, 413 U. S. 483, 492 (1973), the Court noted that “seizing films to destroy them or to block their distribution or exhibition is a very different matter from seizing a single copy of a film for the bona fide purpose of preserving it as evidence in a criminal proceeding.” As a result, we concluded that until there was a “judicial determination of the obscenity issue in an adversary proceeding,” exhibition of a film could not be restrained by seizing all the available copies of it. Id., at 492-493. The same is obviously true for books or any other expressive materials. While a single copy of a book or film may be seized and retained for evidentiary purposes based on a finding of probable cause, the publication may not be taken out of circulation completely until there has been a determination of obscenity after an adversary hearing. Ibid.; see New York v. P. J. Video, Inc., 475 U. S. 868, 874-876 (1986).

Thus, while the general rule under the Fourth Amendment is that any and all contraband, instrumentalities, and evidence of crimes may be seized on probable cause (and even without a warrant in various circumstances), it is otherwise when materials presumptively protected by the First Amendment are involved. Lo-Ji Sales, Inc. v. New York, 442 U. S. 319, 326, n. 5 (1979). It is “[t]he risk of prior restraint, which is the underlying basis for the special Fourth Amendment protections accorded searches for and seizure of First Amendment materials” that motivates this rule. Maryland v. Macon, supra, at 470. These same concerns render invalid the pretrial seizure at issue here.

And yet… the judge appears to ignore that entirely. That’s incredibly troubling for the precedent it sets. It may very well be true that the sites in question were engaged in infringing activity and deserve to lose any lawsuit filed against them. But it’s also possible that they were not engaged in such activities — and yet their sites are preemptively shut down and destroyed, without them even knowing there was a legal proceeding under way. That’s prior restraint.

I actually spoke to Rob Holmes, an “intellectual property cybercrime consultant” who is working with ABS-CBN in this case. Holmes is a Techdirt reader and someone whom I’ve had good discussions with on related subjects in the past — but he’s obviously defending this ruling. As he told me:

The subjects will have plenty of opportunity in the near future to defend their actions. We proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that they were bad actors and, rightfully, the judge made us work hard to prove it.

The reason a case is filed under seal is so that the criminals do not have time to put a contingency plan into action. Otherwise our efforts would not be effective. It’s no different than conducting a raid on a crackhouse. This operation is not only making financial profit from their piracy, but their ads contained malware that infected the computers of all of their users. They are also employing other black-hat techniques in attempts to make money.

You know my case history. The whack-a-mole game is a scam for all involved. From an IP enforcement standpoint, when someone messes with your company’s livelihood, you stop them. And you make sure that all watching are discouraged. Period.

I have to take issue with nearly everything that Rob says here. The fact that they’ll have plenty of opportunity after the fact to dispute the charges against them is besides the point. Who knows if this is a legitimate operation or not, but if it is, and this action totally destroys it, then it’s a bit late to go and complain to the courts after it happened. The whole point of the Supreme Court ruling discussed above is that you have to have an adversarial hearing first. The whole “contingency plan” argument is bogus as well. Any action required in the restraining order could easily be issued at a later date against any other sites that these individuals happen to set up as well.

Rob’s comparison of this to a “crackhouse” and calling them criminals is also dangerously misleading. First, this a civil, not criminal case. Second, as the Supreme Court noted, when you’re dealing with things like drugs, it’s reasonable to seize it. When it’s expressive material, you can take or copy a single example for the purpose of evidence, but you cannot shut the speech down. But that’s what the judge did here. The claim that the case “proved beyond a shadow of a doubt” that they were bad actors is simply laughable as well. Again, only one side of the story has been told here, and already in the complaint itself there are highly questionable arguments (such as arguing that the sites had a requirement to take proactive action against possible infringement).

Whether or not you have to “play whack-a-mole” (and as a trademark expert, Rob should know that it’s actually whac-a-mole) to stop scammers that does not remove the rights of those who operate the sites. And those rights include the First Amendment and the right to an adversarial hearing before expressive content — websites — are taken out of commission.

Who knows if the site operators will really fight back here. They may not. They may, in fact, be engaged in infringement and not wish to challenge any of this in court. But, even so, that doesn’t change the massively problematic nature of this move by ABS-CBN, and the denial of basic due process and the First Amendment to the operators of those sites. People have rights for a reason. We don’t just stomp them out without due process just because one party has told a court that they’re “bad actors.”

Filed Under: adversarial hearing, copyright, free speech, jeffrey ashby, lenie ashby, philippines, prior restraint, temporary restraining order, trademarks
Companies: abs-cbn