• by Wendy Davis , July 16, 2024

Meta Platforms is asking a federal judge to reject Amherst University professor Ethan Zuckerman's request for a court order preventing the company from suing over a research tool designed to study how Facebook's algorithms affect users' health.

The company argues in court papers filed Monday that Zuckerman's suit is premature because the research tool, Unfollow Everything 2.0, hasn't yet been launched.

“There is no 'substantial controversy' for the court to resolve because Unfollow Everything 2.0 does not yet exist,” Meta argues in a motion filed with U.S. District Court Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley in San Francisco.

“Besides bald assertions about how plaintiff intends Unfollow Everything 2.0 to work and what he plans to do with it, there are no concrete facts that would enable this court to adjudicate potential legal claims regarding this tool -- which, at present, does not even operate in the real world,” the company adds.

Zuckerman's complaint, filed in May, describes Unfollow Everything 2.0 as a downloadable extension that would allow Facebook users to automatically unfollow friends, groups and pages, and then decide which people or groups to manually follow again. People who download the tool would be able to opt in to a proposed study that's designed to collect anonymzied data in order to assess the impact of Facebook's news feed on users.

Zuckerman's attorneys with the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University alleged in the complaint that he hasn't yet released the tool because Meta threatened legal action over an earlier version issued in 2021 by developer Louis Barclay.

“Professor Zuckerman is unwilling to subject himself and his team to the risk of legal action,” his lawyers wrote in the complaint.

His complaint included requests for a declaratory judgment that Unfollow Everything 2.0 doesn't violate Facebook's terms of service or anti-hacking laws, and an order prohibiting Meta from suing over the tool.

Knight senior staff attorney Ramya Krishnan disagrees that the case is premature.

“Zuckerman has taken significant and concrete steps to complete the tool, including developing a detailed design for the tool, and assembling a team of engineers that can code the tool within weeks of a court decision that the tool is lawful,” Krishnan said. “This is more than sufficient to establish the court’s power to hear the case.”

In addition to arguing that Zuckerman sued too early, Meta also says that the available information about Unfollow Everything 2.0 shows it would violate the terms of service, which prohibit anyone from scraping the site's data.

“The operation of the yet-to-be-created Unfollow Everything 2.0, at least as currently alleged, would patently violate” the anti-scraping provisions in the terms of service, Meta argues.

The company previously prevailed in a battle over scraping with analytics company BrandTotal, which offered a downloadable extension that collected data from Facebook users who opted in, and who received compensation. U.S. District Court Judge Joseph Spero in San Francisco said in that case that BrandTotal violated Meta's terms of service by using automated means to collect information about consumers. BrandTotal ultimately settled the matter.