THE LAPTOP IN THE CLOSET
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 visits. His mother, Jane Doe, wasn’t amused.
Now, Jane and QR are suing Chaturbate, Jerkmate, Superporn, and other sites many readers are currently pretending they’ve never heard of, claiming that Kansas law should have kept QR out. The law doesn’t mess around: if a site has at least a quarter of its content deemed “harmful to minors,” it’s legally obligated to stop underage visitors. Every slip-up risks a $10,000 fine, and parents can demand at least $50,000 in damages. Jane and QR are asking for a cool $75,000 per site, citing medical bills, future expenses, pain, suffering, and assorted teenage angst.
Their legal escort through this process is The National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE), a group with a longstanding mission to keep explicit material off kids’ screens. NCOSE is framing this as a battle for QR’s health and future, painting Jane as a vigilant parent fighting an uphill battle against a digital bogeyman. But Kansas law defines “harmful to minors” with a net wide enough to catch even content discussing LGBTQ issues or non-sexual physical contact. This has, unsurprisingly, raised an alarm among free speech advocates.
The Kansas lawsuits drop into an already overheated national debate about minors, porn, free speech, and digital privacy. More than 20 states have already passed similar age verification laws, each sparking its own culture clash between parental control and constitutional rights.
As for QR’s digital misadventures? It’s a safe bet his old laptop’s memory wasn’t the only thing that got rebooted.
SAD, BEIGE, AND OVER
A showdown in the world of social media aesthetics fizzled out in a Texas courtroom this past April. The world can now breathe easy as content creators Alyssa Sheil and Sydney Nicole Gifford have ended their copyright lawsuit over who owned the rights to the “neutral, beige, and cream” look. According to a filing in the Western District of Texas, they’ve agreed to drop the suit with prejudice and walk away. Whew…. We dodged a bullet here, folks.
Gifford had accused Sheil of mimicking her social media presence, alleging it was a blatant copy/paste job designed to siphon her followers, engagement, and income. This clash wasn’t just about beige backdrops and cream-colored fashion, though. The claims cited copyright infringement, trade dress infringement, and violations of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
Now that the lawsuit has ended, Sheil’s lawyers have put out a statement celebrating the dismissal. Sheil herself stated: “I could have caved to Ms. Gifford’s demands, but this was a much larger fight and sets a precedent that young minority entrepreneurs will not allow ourselves to be bullied. Ms. Gifford attempted to intimidate me into leaving this industry. She failed miserably as the truth has prevailed today.”
For her part, Gifford’s camp put a more diplomatic spin on things, saying she’d chosen to settle “to focus on her business and growing family and to avoid the substantial additional expenses associated with litigation.” Her attorney added that the case “shed light on what is inappropriate within the creator industry and the need for the law to evolve to better protect content creators.”
Three of Gifford’s claims were dismissed last December, so the April mediation was already significantly smaller in scope. Ultimately, Gifford decided it just wasn’t worth the hassle anymore and voluntarily dismissed all remaining claims with prejudice. The catch? Because Sheil had already filed an answer and the case had been active for nearly a year, Gifford couldn’t dismiss the lawsuit without Sheil’s consent.
“Even though our client was entirely in the right, it is rare to secure a win like this where the plaintiff has to ask you for permission to give up,” said Sheil’s attorney Jason McManis.
X SUES VIETNAMESE CLICK FARM
X has filed a federal lawsuit accusing a Vietnamese click farm of orchestrating a sophisticated fraud scheme that allegedly siphoned off payments from the platform’s Creator Revenue Sharing Program.
According to the complaint, an eight-person team based in Hanoi operated a network of fraudulent accounts using stolen identities to manipulate engagement metrics. These accounts were “programmatically posting computer-generated content” and artificially boosting interactions within their network to trigger revenue payments from X’s system. The complaint describes this as a form of “coordinated platform manipulation” designed to exploit the platform’s algorithm, which rewards high levels of user engagement.
X’s lawsuit seeks disgorgement of the funds and damages under federal racketeering and fraud statutes, naming 25 John Doe defendants alongside the eight identified individuals. The complaint alleges that the group funneled proceeds into more than a hundred U.S. bank accounts (also opened under stolen identities) before transferring them into accounts under their real names at nine Vietnamese banks. In total, X claims the group’s activity spanned more than 1,700 transactions.
The fraudulent activity was eventually uncovered through private investigators and third-party payment processors, including PingPong and Payoneer, who provided identification details linked to the suspect accounts.
The complaint not only accuses the defendants of wire fraud and racketeering but also alleges trademark infringement, asserting that they misused X’s branding in promotional materials for their automation tools.
X’s Creator Revenue Sharing program, launched in 2022, was originally designed to reward premium users for generating ad revenue through interactions. However, after major advertisers began leaving the platform due to perceptions of increased hate speech and brand safety concerns, X restructured the program to reward accounts based on overall engagement metrics. This change inadvertently created a fertile environment for malicious engagement farming.
X is now seeking injunctive relief to halt the operation and damages, including compensatory and punitive damages, to be determined at trial.
COLORADO MAN SENTENCED FOR ONLINE THREATS
Teak Ty Brockbank, a name you simply can’t make up, was sentenced to three years in prison by Colorado District Court Judge Kato Crews for threatening to kill multiple government employees on social networking sites Rumble and Gab.
Brockbank, 45, pleaded guilty to making violent online threats between late 2021 and 2022 against Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, former Arizona Secretary of State (and now Governor) Katie Hobbs, a Colorado judge who oversaw his DUI case, and a few federal agents. He has been incarcerated since his August 2024 arrest. His defense painted him as a misguided “keyboard warrior” drawn to the darker corners of Gab and Rumble, convinced the country was under siege and that it was his patriotic duty to rise up.
In court, his attorney blamed Brockbank’s actions on drinking binges, loneliness, and a steady diet of QAnon conspiracies. They argued that while the posts were ugly and violent, there was no actual plan behind the threats. Even so, prosecutors pointed out that Brockbank’s behavior didn’t stop when he was sober, undermining the “blame it on the booze” defense.
Before handing down the three-year sentence, Judge Crews read aloud some of Brockbank’s more chilling posts, including one that called for Secretary Griswold to “hang by the neck.” Crews called it “keyboard terrorism” and said the penalty had to be high enough to deter others. “The public must not accept this as the norm,” he said, reminding everyone in the courtroom that political violence, whether online or offline, will not be tolerated.
Brockbank tried to pivot in his final statement, apologizing for his “ugly posts” and asking for home detention instead of prison time. Judge Crews noted that while Brockbank’s remorse seemed real, accountability mattered more.
The case, which was investigated largely by a Justice Department task force formed in 2021 to address rising threats against election officials, highlighted the disturbing overlap between online rhetoric and real-world consequences. Secretary of State Griswold made it clear she won’t be backing down. “I will not be intimidated,” she said.
In the end, the lesson was clear: digital threats may feel like shouting into the void, but sometimes the void shouts back with a prison sentence.
META’S AI AD PLAY
Meta Platforms Inc. plans to fully integrate generative AI tools into its advertising suite by the end of next year in a move poised to reshape the marketing industry’s landscape.
According to reporting by The Wall Street Journal, these advanced AI tools will allow brands to craft end-to-end ad campaigns directly within Meta’s platform. This includes everything from generating imagery and copy to targeting users based on location and preferences, all calibrated to the advertiser’s budget. In effect, Meta’s AI system is designed to streamline ad creation and targeting, potentially reducing the need for traditional advertising and media agencies, particularly for clients with smaller budgets.
Currently, Meta’s ad platform offers limited AI capabilities to tweak and optimize ads before deployment on Facebook and Instagram. However, the new tools promise to automate the entire creative and targeting process, which may alter the roles of ad agencies.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg has described this push as a “redefinition of the category of advertising,” underscoring Meta’s commitment to AI-powered solutions.
While some industry observers interpret this as a threat to the agency ecosystem, Meta has taken care to emphasize that agencies will still play a crucial role. “We believe in the future of agencies,” said Alex Schultz, Meta’s chief marketing officer and vice president of analytics. “AI will enable agencies and advertisers to focus precious time and resources on the creativity that matters. While we think there will ultimately be more automation in marketing, the role that agencies play is going to become ever more important through their ability to plan, execute, and measure across platforms.”
For smaller advertisers, the appeal is clear. As Schultz put it, “Millions of small businesses rely upon our platform to grow. For these businesses who aren’t able to work with an agency, or don’t have time during their busy days to think about their creative or targeting, that’s where AI can help level the playing field.”
While Meta’s push into AI-driven advertising doesn’t spell the end for agencies, it certainly signals a shift where technology is poised to take on a larger role in the creative and strategic processes that have traditionally defined the industry.
FOURTH CIRCUIT UPHOLDS DISMISSAL OF FIREMAN’S SOCIAL MEDIA SUIT
The Fourth Circuit has affirmed the dismissal of a lawsuit brought by former Lynchburg, Virginia Fire Captain Martin Misjuns, who alleged that the city violated his constitutional rights by terminating him over controversial social media posts. The case, which raised First and Fourteenth Amendment issues as well as breach of contract and civil rights statutes, centered on whether Lynchburg could be held liable under Monell v. Department of Social Services. In the 1978 Monell decision, the Supreme Court ruled that local governments can be sued when their official policies or practices violate someone’s constitutional rights, but not simply because one of its employees did something wrong. Prior to Monell, municipalities had blanket immunity from such suits.
In January 2021, Misjuns posted anti-transgender cartoons on his public Facebook page under the hashtag “#BidenErasedWomen.” The posts drew swift backlash from citizens, who questioned whether someone espousing such views should remain in public service. City leadership initiated an investigation, and Misjuns was terminated in October 2021. He pursued internal grievance channels without success and ultimately filed suit.
The Fourth Circuit found that Misjuns failed to establish Monell liability. The court also dismissed his breach of contract claim, noting that Lynchburg’s employment policies contain clear at-will disclaimers.
In a concurring opinion, Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III acknowledged Misjuns’s right to express his views but emphasized that his speech was “bigoted and divisive,” which eroded public trust in the department and justified disciplinary action. Misjuns may appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court for review, but it seems this fire captain may have been his own career’s arsonist.
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