NetChoice hasn't alleged a “cognizable" First Amendment injury to its members that could establish its "associational standing,” said Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost (R) in a memorandum Friday (docket 2:24-cv-00047) in U.S. District Court for Southern Ohio in Columbus opposing NetChoice’s motion for a preliminary injunction to block him from enforcing the state's Social Media Operators Act.
The Schools, Health & Libraries Broadband Coalition seeks leave to intervene on the FCC’s behalf in opposing a petition asking that the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals review the commission's Oct. 25 declaratory ruling authorizing funding for Wi-Fi service and equipment on school buses under the agency's E-rate program (see 2312200040), said the coalition’s unopposed motion Friday (docket 23-60641).
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals assigned case number 24-271 to the X platform’s appeal of the district court's Dec. 28 denial of its motion for a preliminary injunction to block California from enforcing AB-587, the state’s social media transparency law (see 2401160031), said a text-only docket entry Thursday. X sought to block AB-587's enforcement on grounds that it violates the First Amendment and that federal law preempts it. Denial of the injunction turned on X’s failure to establish its likelihood of success on the merits, said the memorandum and order signed by U.S. District Judge William Shubb for Eastern California.
The idea that some types of social media use by some minors under certain conditions “can adversely affect some segment of this cohort is no basis for imposing state restrictions on all social media use by all minors,” said four Utah residents in a Jan. 12 complaint (docket 2:24-cv-00031) in U.S. District Court for Utah in Salt Lake City challenging the constitutionality of the Utah Social Media Regulation Act.
Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird (R) sued TikTok for deceiving Iowa parents about “children’s widespread access to inappropriate content” on its platform, said her Wednesday news release announcing a fraud complaint against the social media platform in Iowa District Court for Polk County in Des Moines.
The Judicial Panel for Multidistrict Litigation transferred four board of education class actions against social media platforms to In Re: Social Media Adolescent Addiction/Personal Injury Products Liability Litigation, said conditional transfer order 26 (CTO-26) (docket 3047). The actions involve questions of fact common to the actions previously transferred to the MDL and assigned to U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers for Northern California, said the order. The actions in CTO-26 are Board of Education East Prairie School District 73 et al v. Meta Platforms et al (docket 1:24-cv-00042) from U.S. District Court for Northern Illinois and three cases from U.S. District Court for Eastern North Carolina: Johnston County Board of Education v. Meta (docket 5:23-cv-00718), Wilson County Board of Education v. Meta (docket 5:23-cv-00720) and Clinton City Board of Education v. Meta (docket 7:23-cv-01672), it said. The actions seek to hold social media platforms responsible for rising rates of mental illness among U.S. school kids. The transmittal of the order is stayed for seven days to allow any of the parties to oppose the transfer.
Like the states that stepped in to prevent discrimination in “the last great communication revolution,” Texas enacted HB-20 to address discrimination by social media platforms, said the state attorney general's office in its opening brief at the U.S. Supreme Court Tuesday (docket 22-555) to affirm the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision upholding the statute’s constitutionality.
Social media companies “are going to keep committing deliberate child safety violations just as long as they can continue raking in billions in profits off kids,” said Tech Oversight Project Executive Director Sacha Haworth in a Thursday news release.
The Montana Attorney General's office needs a 30-day deadline extension to file the opening brief in its 9th U.S. Circuit Appeals Court appeal to vacate the district court’s preliminary injunction that blocks AG Austin Knudsen (R) from enforcing SB-419, Montana’s statewide TikTok ban (see 2401040002), said the office’s consent motion Wednesday (docket 24-34).
Plaintiff Zuania Vazquez-Padilla and defendant Cognizant Technology Solutions want U.S. District Judge Thomas Barber for Middle Florida in Tampa to transfer their case to Judge Mary Scriven, also in Middle Florida, said their joint motion Tuesday (docket 8:23-cv-02607). Scriven presides over an earlier-filed action where Vazquez-Padilla initially asserted the same claims. Proceeding under different judges “presents the probability of inefficiency and inconsistency,” said their motion. Vazquez-Padilla’s lawsuit arises out of the litigation, Aguilo et al. v. Cognizant (docket 8:21-cv-002054), currently pending before Scriven, it said. Vazquez-Padilla was one of about 150 individual plaintiffs in Aguilo, who claimed they had been employed by Cognizant as content moderators to review and remove material posted to social media platforms that violated their terms of use, it said. The plaintiffs in Aguilo alleged that Cognizant fraudulently misrepresented the nature of the content moderator job during the hiring and training process, causing each of them to suffer certain psychological harms, it said. Scriven entered a dismissal order Sept. 15, directing remaining plaintiffs who elected to proceed with their litigation to file individual lawsuits, “properly pleading their fraudulent misrepresentation claims,” and to do so no later than Nov. 14, said the motion. Fourteen plaintiffs did so, including Vazquez-Padilla (see 2311150021), it said. Four of the cases are pending before Scriven, and Cognizant is filing similar motions to transfer all the cases to her, it said.