Justia Communications Law Opinion Summaries

A trade association representing internet companies challenged the enforcement of a new Tennessee statute designed to protect minors from social media risks. The law requires social media companies to verify the ages of all prospective account holders and secure parental consent before allowing minors to create accounts. It also mandates that parents be given tools to supervise their children’s accounts. The association argued that its members would suffer unrecoverable compliance costs and that the law would restrict their and their users’ First Amendment rights.The United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee denied the association’s motion for a preliminary injunction. The district court concluded that the association had not established irreparable harm, finding that the alleged loss of First Amendment freedoms was not sufficiently certain or imminent, and that unrecoverable compliance costs did not qualify as irreparable harm. Because the court found no irreparable harm, it did not consider the other preliminary injunction factors.The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reviewed the district court’s denial. The appellate court disagreed with the lower court’s analysis of irreparable harm, holding that both unrecoverable compliance costs and the loss of First Amendment freedoms can satisfy the threshold requirement for irreparable harm. The court explained that compliance costs need not be extraordinary to be considered irreparable and that the chilling effect on speech, even before enforcement, can constitute irreparable harm if enforcement is likely and imminent. The Sixth Circuit vacated the district court’s order and remanded the case for further consideration of all preliminary injunction factors, directing the lower court to weigh the harm asserted and address the remaining legal standards as appropriate. View "NetChoice, LLC v. Skrmetti" on Justia Law

In 2022, Soohyung Kim and his company, through an affiliate, secured a winning bid to purchase TEGNA, a large broadcast television company. The transaction required regulatory approval from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) within 450 days, as specified in the merger agreement. The proposal drew objections from several organizations and individuals, including labor unions, public interest groups, and a rival bidder. Amid ongoing objections and extended public comment periods, the FCC’s Media Bureau ultimately failed to approve the license transfer within the required timeframe, resulting in the expiration of the merger agreement and obligating Kim’s group to pay significant break-up fees.After the collapse of the merger, the appellants filed suit in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia against both the FCC and various private parties. They alleged constitutional and statutory violations, including Equal Protection claims, Communications Act violations, federal civil rights and conspiracy claims, and D.C.-law tort claims, asserting that the FCC and private parties conspired to prevent the merger based on race. The District Court dismissed all claims. Regarding the FCC, the court found the appellants lacked standing for prospective relief, as they failed to allege a substantial risk of future injury. The court also dismissed the Communications Act claims for lack of jurisdiction. As to the claims against private parties, the court applied Noerr-Pennington immunity and found no plausible basis for the civil rights or tort claims.On appeal, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit affirmed the District Court’s dismissal. The court held that the appellants lacked standing against the FCC due to insufficient allegations of likely future injury. The court further held that the claims against private appellees failed because the complaint did not plausibly allege intentional race discrimination or actionable tortious interference, and thus did not state a claim upon which relief could be granted. View "SGCI Holdings III LLC v. FCC" on Justia Law

Two investigative journalists, on assignment for a nonprofit media organization known for undercover reporting, infiltrated Democratic political consulting operations in 2016 using false identities. One reporter, posing as a philanthropist, met with a political consultant who then arranged for his colleague to hire the second reporter, also undercover, as an unpaid intern at the consultant's firm. The intern secretly recorded conversations and internal meetings over eight days, gaining access to nonpublic information. The media organization later published a video series alleging a conspiracy to incite violence at political events, using footage from both public interactions and the intern’s covert recordings.After the video’s release, major clients of the consulting firm terminated their contracts, citing concerns about scandal and the security breach. The consulting firm and its principals sued the journalists and their organizations in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, alleging fraudulent misrepresentation, conspiracy, and violations of federal and D.C. wiretapping laws. The district court granted summary judgment for the defendants on some claims but allowed others to proceed to trial. A jury found for the plaintiffs on the remaining claims and awarded damages for lost contracts and statutory damages for wiretapping.The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit reviewed the verdict. It held that the First Amendment barred damages based on losses caused by the publication’s protected speech, as the plaintiffs failed to prove that the unprotected conduct (the infiltration and covert recording) was the predominant cause of their damages. The court also held that the intern did not owe a fiduciary duty to the consulting firm under D.C. law, and therefore the wiretapping claims could not stand. The court reversed the district court’s denial of judgment as a matter of law and vacated the damages awards. View "Democracy Partners, LLC v. O'Keefe" on Justia Law

Several residential property owners and a short-term rental platform challenged two ordinances enacted by the city. The first ordinance, adopted in 2023, restricts short-term rental licenses to one per residential block and distributes them by lottery. The second ordinance, adopted in 2024, requires short-term rental platforms to verify the license status of properties before facilitating transactions, and to periodically reverify this status. Plaintiffs alleged that these ordinances infringed upon their constitutional and statutory rights, including claims under the Takings Clause and Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana reviewed the plaintiffs’ claims. It dismissed all claims under Rule 12(b)(6), except for Airbnb’s Fourth Amendment challenge regarding a monthly reporting requirement in the 2024 Ordinance. The district court granted Airbnb summary judgment on that particular claim. Airbnb appealed the dismissal of its other claims.The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit examined the case de novo. The court held that the 2023 Ordinance did not constitute a per se or regulatory taking under the Takings Clause, noting that the ordinance neither physically appropriated property nor severely impaired economic expectations. It also found the ordinance to be a reasonable zoning regulation that balanced public interests. Regarding Section 230, the Fifth Circuit ruled that neither the booking nor verification requirements of the 2024 Ordinance treated Airbnb as the publisher or speaker of third-party content, and thus were not preempted. The court affirmed the district court’s dismissal of the Takings Clause claim and the Section 230 claim, as well as the dismissal of other claims raised by the plaintiffs. View "Bodin v. New Orleans" on Justia Law

In this case, several major third-party food delivery platforms operating in New York City challenged a city ordinance enacted in 2021. The law required these platforms to share specific customer information—including full name, phone number, email address, delivery address, and order contents—with restaurants upon request. Typically, platforms retain this data and provide only limited details to restaurants. The platforms argued that the law forced them to disclose information about their customers, implicating First Amendment protections against compelled speech.Prior to this appeal, the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York reviewed cross-motions for summary judgment. The district court determined that the law compelled speech by requiring platforms to share customer data, and concluded that the deferential standard from Zauderer v. Office of Disciplinary Counsel of the Supreme Court of Ohio did not apply. Instead, the court applied the intermediate scrutiny standard from Central Hudson Gas & Electric Corp. v. Public Service Commission of New York and found the law could not survive that review. The district court granted summary judgment to the platforms and permanently enjoined enforcement of the law against their Marketplace products.The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reviewed the case on appeal. The City argued that Zauderer’s deferential standard should apply and, alternatively, that the law was valid under intermediate scrutiny. The Second Circuit disagreed, holding that Zauderer did not apply because the law compelled disclosure about third parties, not about the platforms’ own services. Applying Central Hudson’s intermediate scrutiny, the court found the law failed because the City had not shown a reasonable fit between its interests and the law’s means, especially given less burdensome alternatives. The Second Circuit affirmed the district court’s judgment, holding the law unconstitutional as applied to the platforms’ Marketplace products. View "DoorDash, Inc. v. City of New York" on Justia Law

Texas enacted a law imposing new requirements on certain social media platforms, termed "digital service providers" (DSPs), to restrict minors’ access to specific categories of content. These requirements included monitoring and filtering content deemed harmful, prohibiting targeted ads to minors, preventing unlawful ads, verifying user age for access to certain material, and requiring age registration for account creation. Two groups challenged the law: one group, including technology industry organizations, contested the monitoring and filtering requirement; another group, comprised of a student coalition, individuals, and an ad agency, challenged several provisions, including the monitoring and filtering, targeted ads, unlawful ads, and age-verification requirements.In the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas, both plaintiffs sought preliminary injunctions against enforcement of the law. The district court granted injunctions in part, enjoining the monitoring and filtering requirements for both groups, and enjoining the targeted ads, unlawful ads, and age-verification requirements for the student coalition group. The court found these provisions likely unconstitutional or vague, and held that the plaintiffs had standing based on the chilling effect on their speech and listening rights. The Attorney General of Texas appealed, and the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit consolidated the cases.The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held that the student coalition plaintiffs lacked standing to challenge the monitoring and filtering, targeted ads, and unlawful ads requirements, as they were not directly regulated and failed to show a substantial risk of imminent harm. Their challenge to the age-verification requirement was foreclosed by Supreme Court precedent. However, the court held that the monitoring and filtering requirement, as challenged by the industry groups, is preempted by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. The Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court’s injunction as to the industry group, but vacated and remanded the injunction as to the student coalition plaintiffs. View "Computer & Communications Industry Association v. Paxton" on Justia Law

A man was investigated after Google and Yahoo flagged several of his email accounts for sending and storing what appeared to be child pornography. Both companies identified the user through information like a shared recovery phone number, birthdate, and selfies associated with the accounts. Yahoo manually reviewed and confirmed the images as child pornography before reporting them to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). Google used both human review and a hash-value matching protocol, whereby a file’s unique digital fingerprint was compared against a database of previously identified illegal images. One of the files in the defendant’s account matched the hash of a known child pornography image. Law enforcement, after receiving tips from NCMEC, conducted warrantless searches and confirmed the illicit nature of the files, leading to search warrants for the defendant’s residence and devices, which yielded more incriminating evidence.The United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida denied the defendant’s motions to suppress the evidence (arguing a Fourth Amendment violation), to dismiss one of the charges on double jeopardy grounds, and to exclude certain evidence. The court also rejected his arguments concerning the admissibility of defense evidence, the sufficiency of the evidence, and the jury instructions. The defendant was convicted by a jury on both distribution and possession charges and given an enhanced sentence based on a finding of a pattern of activity involving abuse or exploitation. His subsequent motions for psychological evaluation and sentencing continuance were also denied.On appeal, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit held that Google’s use of hash-value matching constituted a valid private search under the Fourth Amendment, so the government’s warrantless review did not violate the defendant’s rights. The court also held that possession and distribution of child pornography are separate offenses for double jeopardy purposes. The appellate court affirmed all district court decisions except for the application of a pattern-of-activity sentencing enhancement, which it found improper; it vacated the sentence and remanded for resentencing. View "USA v. Brillhart" on Justia Law

In response to a mass shooting in Buffalo, New York, that was planned, publicized, and broadcast via social media, the state legislature enacted the Hateful Conduct Law (HCL). This statute requires social media networks conducting business in New York to provide a clear, easily accessible mechanism for users to report "hateful conduct" and to maintain a public policy describing how the network will address such reports. "Hateful conduct" is defined as using a social media network to vilify, humiliate, or incite violence against groups based on protected characteristics. Plaintiffs, including operators of social media platforms, challenged the law before it took effect, arguing that it would compel them to speak against certain content and chill protected expression.The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York granted a preliminary injunction, finding that the HCL likely violated the First Amendment by compelling social media networks to endorse the state’s definition of hateful conduct and to publish policies about it. The court determined that the law could have a chilling effect on free speech, even though it did not require removal of the content itself. The Attorney General appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, which determined that resolution of the constitutional issues depended on the proper interpretation of the HCL under New York law. The Second Circuit certified three questions to the New York Court of Appeals concerning the scope of the statute’s requirements.The New York Court of Appeals concluded that social media networks comply with the law if their reporting mechanism and public policy do not explicitly reference or define "hateful conduct," as long as users can report such conduct and learn how reports will be addressed. The court further held that the law does not require networks to respond to reports of hateful conduct. The certified questions were answered accordingly. View "Volokh v James" on Justia Law

The case concerns a challenge to Ohio’s Parental Notification by Social Media Operators Act, which requires operators of certain social media platforms to obtain verifiable parental consent before unemancipated children under sixteen can enter into contracts to use their services. The Act defines covered operators based on features such as enabling social interaction, profile creation, and content sharing, and details factors to determine whether a site targets or is likely to be accessed by minors. The law imposes civil penalties for non-compliance and grants enforcement authority to the Ohio Attorney General.When the Act was set to take effect, NetChoice, LLC—a trade association representing major online platforms—sued the Ohio Attorney General in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio. NetChoice argued the Act was unconstitutional on First Amendment and vagueness grounds, asserting that it would chill protected speech and was impermissibly vague about which platforms were covered. The district court agreed, finding that NetChoice had standing, that the Act was a facially unconstitutional content-based restriction on speech that failed strict scrutiny, and that it was unconstitutionally vague. The court permanently enjoined enforcement of the Act.The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reviewed the case and reversed the district court’s judgment. The appellate court held that NetChoice lacked third-party standing to assert the First Amendment rights of its members’ minor users due to a conflict of interest between the trade group and the affected minors. The court further found that, even considering NetChoice’s own First Amendment and vagueness claims, NetChoice failed to show the Act was facially unconstitutional. The Sixth Circuit held that the Act, while content-based and subject to strict scrutiny, was narrowly tailored to compelling state interests in protecting children and was not impermissibly vague in all its applications. The case was remanded for entry of judgment in favor of the Attorney General. View "NetChoice, LLC v. Yost" on Justia Law

Several cities challenged recent Texas legislative changes that reduced the fees cities could charge telecommunications companies for using public property alongside city streets. The cities argued that requiring them to charge less than market rates for this use amounted to an unconstitutional gift to the telecom companies, contrary to the Texas Constitution’s Gift Clauses. Seeking a judicial declaration to this effect, the cities sued the State of Texas as the sole defendant, asserting that the statutory rate reductions were unconstitutional.At the trial level, the district court partially granted the cities’ request for a declaratory judgment. The Court of Appeals for the Third District of Texas went further, largely siding with the cities and holding that the statutory reductions violated the Gift Clauses. The State then sought review by the Supreme Court of Texas.The Supreme Court of Texas determined that the lower courts lacked jurisdiction over the case because the cities had sued the wrong defendant. The court explained that in constitutional challenges to state statutes, the proper defendant must be the officer or agency with authority to enforce the challenged law, not the State of Texas in the abstract. The court noted that the cities failed to identify any such officer or agency, and there was no indication that any state official had enforced or threatened to enforce the challenged statutes against the cities. Because a judgment against the “State of Texas” would not redress the cities’ alleged injuries nor bind the telecommunications companies, the dispute lacked the concrete adversarial parties necessary for a justiciable controversy. The Supreme Court of Texas vacated the judgments of the lower courts and dismissed the case for lack of jurisdiction. View "STATE v. CITY OF MCALLEN" on Justia Law