• by Wendy Davis , 10 hours ago

Siding with Meta Platforms, a federal judge has thrown out a Maryland resident's lawsuit over phony ads on Facebook.

In a decision issued late last week, U.S. District Court Judge George Russell, III in Baltimore ruled that Meta was protected by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which generally provides that interactive companies aren't responsible for illegal content posted by third parties.

The decision comes in a lawsuit brought in May by Barry Glazer, a prominent personal injury attorney and medical malpractice attorney, as well as prolific TV advertiser.

He alleged in a class-action complaint that he purchased 20 purported U.S. Morgan silver dollars from the late 1800s for $3.50 each, after viewing an ad for them on Facebook Marketplace.

He said he was "intrigued by the implausibly low price but misled by the presentation of the listing."

Glazer alleged that he later discovered the coins were counterfeit, after which he sued Meta over the ads.

"These fraudulent listings appeared to target financially unsophisticated, less-educated, or otherwise vulnerable consumers, and were so facially deceptive that any reasonable platform with appropriate oversight would have flagged or removed them," he alleged.

Among other claims, he alleged that Meta was negligent and that it broke its contract with users by failing to "remove or properly address" fake ads.

Meta urged Russell to dismiss the case at an early stage for several reasons -- including that the claims were barred by Section 230.

"Because each of plaintiff’s claims seeks to hold Meta liable as a publisher of third-party content, Section 230 requires that the complaint be dismissed," the company wrote.

Russell agreed, writing that Section 230 precluded all claims in the lawsuit.

Glazer had attempted to argue that his claims fell within a judicially created exception to Section 230 that applies when online companies help "develop" illegal ads.

Specifically, Glazer alleged that Meta helped to develop the fake ads by requiring users to provide demographic information, including ages, genders and locations, to sign up for Facebook. That data then allowed advertisers to target people based on those characteristics, he alleged.

Russell rejected that theory, essentially ruling that this exception to Section 230 only applies if web companies help to develop unlawful content.

"Glazer has not alleged that the advertisements here are discriminatory," Russell wrote, adding that Glazer also failed to allege the kinds of facts that could prove Meta's demographic questions and algorithm "contributed to the fraudulent nature of the advertisements."

Meta faces a separate class-action complaint in California over allegedly phony ads. U.S. District Court Judge Jeffrey White in the Northern District of California initially dismissed that complaint, ruling that Section 230 barred the claims, but the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals revived the lawsuit.

The appellate court specifically ruled in the matter that the users who sued could attempt to prove that Meta violated its terms of service by allegedly failing to police Facebook ads placed by third parties.

Last month, White rejected Meta's renewed bid to dismiss the case, holding that the allegations against the platform, if found to be true, could support claims the company broke its contract with users and violated its duty of good faith.