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EFF to Federal Trial Court: Section 230’s Little-Known Third Immunity for User-Empowerment Tools Covers Unfollow Everything 2.0

EFF update

2 months 4 weeks ago

EFF along with the ACLU of Northern California and the Center for Democracy & Technology filed an amicus brief in a federal trial court in California in support of a college professor who fears being sued by Meta for developing a tool that allows Facebook users to easily clear out their News Feed.

Ethan Zuckerman, a professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, is in the process of developing Unfollow Everything 2.0, a browser extension that would allow Facebook users to automate their ability to unfollow friends, groups, or pages, thereby limiting the content they see in their News Feed.

This type of tool would greatly benefit Facebook users who want more control over their Facebook experience. The unfollowing process is tedious: you must go profile by profile—but automation makes this process a breeze. Unfollowing all friends, groups, and pages makes the News Feed blank, but this allows you to curate your News Feed by refollowing people and organizations you want regular updates on. Importantly, unfollowing isn’t the same thing as unfriending—unfollowing takes your friends’ content out of your News Feed, but you’re still connected to them and can proactively navigate to their profiles.

As Louis Barclay, the developer of Unfollow Everything 1.0, explained:

I still remember the feeling of unfollowing everything for the first time. It was near-miraculous. I had lost nothing, since I could still see my favorite friends and groups by going to them directly. But I had gained a staggering amount of control. I was no longer tempted to scroll down an infinite feed of content. The time I spent on Facebook decreased dramatically. Overnight, my Facebook addiction became manageable.

Prof. Zuckerman fears being sued by Meta, Facebook’s parent company, because the company previously sent Louis Barclay a cease-and-desist letter. Prof. Zuckerman, with the help of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, preemptively sued Meta, asking the court to conclude that he has immunity under Section 230(c)(2)(B), Section 230’s little-known third immunity for developers of user-empowerment tools.

In our amicus brief, we explained to the court that Section 230(c)(2)(B) is unique among the immunities of Section 230, and that Section 230’s legislative history supports granting immunity in this case.

The other two immunities—Section 230(c)(1) and Section 230(c)(2)(A)—provide direct protection for internet intermediaries that host user-generated content, moderate that content, and incorporate blocking and filtering software into their systems. As we’ve argued many times before, these immunities give legal breathing room to the online platforms we use every day and ensure that those companies continue to operate, to the benefit of all internet users.

But it’s Section 230(c)(2)(B) that empowers people to have control over their online experiences outside of corporate or government oversight, by providing immunity to the developers of blocking and filtering tools that users can deploy in conjunction with the online platforms they already use.

Our brief further explained that the legislative history of Section 230 shows that Congress clearly intended to provide immunity for user-empowerment tools like Unfollow Everything 2.0.

Section 230(b)(3) states, for example, that the statute was meant to “encourage the development of technologies which maximize user control over what information is received by individuals, families, and schools who use the Internet and other interactive computer services,” while Section 230(b)(4) states that the statute was intended to “remove disincentives for the development and utilization of blocking and filtering technologies that empower parents to restrict their children’s access to objectionable or inappropriate online material.” Rep. Chris Cox, a co-author of Section 230, noted prior to passage that new technology was “quickly becoming available” that would help enable people to “tailor what we see to our own tastes.”

Our brief also explained the more specific benefits of Section 230(c)(2)(B). The statute incentivizes the development of a wide variety of user-empowerment tools, from traditional content filtering to more modern social media tailoring. The law also helps people protect their privacy by incentivizing the tools that block methods of unwanted corporate tracking such as advertising cookies, and block stalkerware deployed by malicious actors.

We hope the district court will declare that Prof. Zuckerman has Section 230(c)(2)(B) immunity so that he can release Unfollow Everything 2.0 to the benefit of Facebook users who desire more control over how they experience the platform.

Sophia Cope