YouTube TV is thriving, and its rivals want a piece of the action. Recently, media ratings giant Nielsen confirmed that YouTube is now not only the most-watched streaming service in the United States, but also the...more
7/23/2025
/ Censorship ,
First Amendment ,
Foreign Students ,
Free Speech ,
Mental Health ,
Metaverse ,
Political Campaigns ,
Pornography ,
Social Media ,
Telecommunications ,
Television ,
Texas ,
TikTok ,
Warning Labels ,
YouTube
In a ruling that could reshape how adult content is regulated online, the U.S. Supreme Court has officially age-gated the First Amendment—at least when it comes to minors.
On June 27, 2025, the Court upheld a Texas law...more
7/14/2025
/ First Amendment ,
Free Speech ,
Free Speech Coalition Inc v Paxton ,
Internet ,
Minors ,
Online Platforms ,
Online Safety for Children ,
Pornography ,
Regulation ,
SCOTUS ,
State Attorneys General ,
Texas ,
Websites
This odyssey began when an old laptop was discovered by a curious 14-year-old boy in Kansas. The boy, known only as “QR,” used it to sneak onto a handful of adult websites over two months last year, racking up 118 virtual...more
7/2/2025
/ Artificial Intelligence ,
At-Will Employment ,
Copyright ,
Copyright Infringement ,
Cyber Threats ,
Employment Policies ,
Exploitation ,
Facebook ,
Fines ,
Fraud ,
Free Speech ,
Influencers ,
LGBTQ ,
Metaverse ,
Minors ,
Social Media ,
Termination ,
Websites
A court in the Southern District of Ohio has issued a preliminary injunction against enforcement of the Social Media Parental Notification Act, an Ohio law that would require social media platforms to obtain parental consent...more
Singapore has enacted a law granting government ministers the power to require social media platforms to completely remove or place warnings alongside posts the authorities designate as false....more
As we have noted previously, the California Court of Appeal’s Hassell v. Bird decision in 2016 upholding an injunction requiring Yelp to remove certain user reviews was discouraging to social media companies and other online...more
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....more
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...more
In order to comply with a new German law requiring social media sites to take down hate speech, Twitter and Facebook removed anti-Islamic social media posts authored by a German far-right political party....more
In an effort to deter hate groups from tweeting sanitized versions of their messages, Twitter has began considering account holders’ off platform behavior when the platform evaluates whether potentially harmful tweets should...more
The government in Indonesia has warned the world’s biggest social media providers that they risk being banned in that country if they don’t block pornography and other content deemed obscene....more
In an opinion granting a preliminary injunction preventing LinkedIn from blocking a startup’s use of information in LinkedIn profiles accessible to the entire public, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of...more
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...more
8/9/2017
/ Alphabet Company ,
Antitrust Violations ,
Defamation ,
EU ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Free Speech ,
Google ,
Influencers ,
Marketing ,
Social Media ,
UK
Instagram is now allowing a limited number of users to identify branded content with a “paid partnership” subhead instead of using hashtags like #ad and #sponsored to identify sponsored posts. The platform says it plans to...more
Without Google’s permission, Burger King ended one of its television commercials with a statement designed to automatically cause Google Assistant devices to read a list of the Whopper’s ingredients out loud.
Having passed...more
The U.S. District Court for the District of New Hampshire recently struck down on First Amendment grounds a 2014 amendment to New Hampshire Revised Statute 659:35 that made it illegal for New Hampshire voters to post pictures...more
..A saving grace for search results. In the first case since 2007 to address the issue, a California state court judge recently held that Google’s search results are in fact protected by U.S. free speech laws, and that Google...more