• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, November 8, 2024

A federal judge has rejected Amherst University professor Ethan Zuckerman's request for an order preventing Meta Platforms from suing over a tool designed to study how Facebook's algorithms affect users' health.

The decision, issued Thursday by U.S. District Court Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley in San Franciso was “without prejudice” -- meaning Zuckerman can return to court with the same request in the future.

Corley hasn't yet issued a written decision spelling out her reasoning, but Zuckerman's attorneys suggested the judge thought Zuckerman's bid for a court order was premature because he sued before fully developing the tool, Unfollow Everything 2.0.

“We’re disappointed the court believes Professor Zuckerman needs to code the tool before the court resolves the case,” Ramya Krishnan, an attorney with Zuckerman's counsel at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, stated Friday.

The ruling comes in a battle that began in May, when Zuckerman sought a judicial declaration that Unfollow Everything 2.0 doesn't violate Facebook's terms of service or anti-hacking laws, and an injunction prohibiting Meta from suing him.

According to the complaint, Unfollow Everything 2.0 is a downloadable extension designed to allow Facebook users to automatically unfollow friends, groups and pages, and then decide which people or groups to manually follow again; downloaders would be able to opt in to a study examining the impact of Facebook's news feed on users' well-being.

Zuckerman said in the complaint that he hadn't yet released the extension because Meta previously threatened legal action over developer Louis Barclay's similar tool.

Earlier this year, Meta urged Corley to dismiss the case, arguing that Zuckerman's tool didn't yet exist.

“There is no substantial, immediate, or real controversy, not least because 'Unfollow Everything 2.0' is hypothetical,” Meta argued in a written motion, adding that its terms of service, as well as computer hacking laws, “focus on specific, technical conduct relating to the interaction between data, computers, and servers.”

“Even if plaintiff could allege sufficient details about a nonexistent tool he plans to invent to allow an initial hypothetical adjudication, readjudication would be required if the tool were to operate differently than suggested,” Meta added.

The dispute drew the attention of outside organizations, including the civil rights groups Electronic Frontier Foundation, American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, and Center for Democracy & Technology.

They argued in a friend-of-the-court brief that Zuckerman's tool is protected by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act -- an argument he also raised in his complaint.

In addition to immunizing web publishers from lawsuits over users' posts, Section 230 protects interactive computer services providers that technologically restrict “objectionable” material.

The civil rights groups contend Unfollow Everything 2.0 is covered by that provision -- essentially arguing that certain Facebook pages or groups are objectionable to users, and the extension prevents that material from appearing in the newsfeed.