Mezey v. Twitter Inc.
Case Law- Country
- Country Location
Latitude: 39.778231903243785
Longitude: -100.8801256788983
- Country Location (linked Case Law)
- United States
- Decision Date
- 19 de jul de 2018
- Case Status
- Closed
- Case Outcome (Procedural)
- Dismissed
- Case Outcome (Disposition)
- Judgment in Favor of Defendant
- Keywords
- Content Moderation
- Content Regulation / Censorship
- Intermediary Liability
- Social Media
- Judicial Body
- First Instance Court
- Court Name
- United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida
- Case Number
- 1:18-cv-21069-KMM
- Case Summary
The United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida dismissed a lawsuit against Twitter implementing the three-part test under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, 1996. Barry Mezey, a Twitter user, filed a lawsuit against Twitter for suspending his account without providing any reasonable justification. The District Court dismissed the complaint and observed that Twitter was an interactive computer service exercising a publisher’s traditional editorial functions and considered Mezey’s content as the “third party” content. The District Court concluded that the Communications Decency Act protected Twitter’s decision to remove Mezey’s content.
- Case Significance
While the decision does not provide background on the facts surrounding why Twitter suspended the user’s account, Eric Goldman writing for the Technology and Marketing Law Blog observed that the Court widens Section 230 of the CDA’s jurisprudence emerging from Riggs v. MySpace to Sikhs for Justice v. Facebook to Taylor v. Twitter, wherein the Court in each case treats the plaintiff’s content as the “third party” content for Section 230 purposes and holds that Section 230 protects the defendant’s decision to remove the plaintiff’s “third party” content. The Court in this decision reaffirmed the Communications Decency Act protection of interactive platforms from liability. However, by focusing on the contractual relationship between the plaintiff and Twitter, the Court failed to address the possible impact of removing the content for the user in light of the national and international standards of freedom of expression, allowing interactive platforms to over-moderate by censoring content.
This case did not set a binding or persuasive precedent either within or outside its jurisdiction. The significance of this case is undetermined at this point in time.
- Source Name and URL
- Global Freedom of Expression
- Notes
Decision: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/6341074/mezey-v-twitter-inc/
- Related Analysis
- Collection
- Columbia
- Date Updated
- 19 de jul de 2024