Section 230 immunity isn’t just for Big Tech companies, lawsuit says.
The tool is nearly ready to be released, Zuckerman told Ars, but the University of Massachusetts Amherst associate professor is afraid that Facebook owner Meta might threaten legal action if he goes ahead. And his fears appear well-founded. In 2021, Meta sent a cease-and-desist letter to the creator of the original Unfollow Everything, Louis Barclay, leading that developer to shut down his tool after thousands of Facebook users had eagerly downloaded it.
Zuckerman is suing Meta, asking a US district court in California to invalidate Meta's past arguments against developers like Barclay and rule that Meta would have no grounds to sue if he released his tool.
I stopped using all social media that insists on taking control of my content a long while ago. History has taught us that the laws flow with, and follow the money. And Meta has a lot of it.
Just don't use the products, and use these examples as to "why" you won't when pressed. It's gross that we are wanting to be a part of a product that isn't for us.
Why would you want to exist in that, when it is such a difficult experience? I just can't wrap my head around it.
Probably but thats not the issue. The issue is mass influx of badly moderated and likely, eventually ad ridden content. They can totally read all my stuff. I dont want them to push their shit on my server and I dont want them to gain power over my feed. What would happen if I defederated lemmy.world tomorrow? Exactly, my feed would be 75% shorter because most stuff is on there. With meta, world is suddenly 10% of the feed and meta is 90.
His privacy-friendly browser extension, Unfollow Everything 2.0, is designed to essentially give users a switch to turn the newsfeed on and off whenever they want, providing a way to eliminate or curate the feed.
The tool is nearly ready to be released, Zuckerman told Ars, but the University of Massachusetts Amherst associate professor is afraid that Facebook owner Meta might threaten legal action if he goes ahead.
In 2021, Meta sent a cease-and-desist letter to the creator of the original Unfollow Everything, Louis Barclay, leading that developer to shut down his tool after thousands of Facebook users had eagerly downloaded it.
In picking this unusual legal fight with Meta, the professor—seemingly for the first time ever—is attempting to tip Section 230's shield away from Big Tech and instead protect third-party developers from giant social media platforms.
Through this provision, Congress intended to promote the development of filtering tools that enable users to curate their online experiences and avoid content they would rather not see.
Ramya Krishnan, a senior staff attorney at the Knight Institute who helped draft Zuckerman's complaint, told Ars that some Facebook users are concerned that the newsfeed "prioritizes inflammatory and sensational speech," and they "may not want to see that kind of content."
The original article contains 593 words, the summary contains 206 words. Saved 65%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
This is insane. The filters for the feed should be built-in. Its annoying that we have to use a third party for this, and they have no right saying what tools I use to improve their product
This browser extension "would allow Facebook users to automatically unfollow their friends, groups, and pages, and, in doing so, to effectively turn off their newsfeeds, which Facebook algorithmically sorts to drive user engagement," the Knight Institute said in a statement.
Interesting, I've been doing that manually for a while now (not Facebook though, I haven't opened that feed in years).
When I unfollowed everything for the first time, I did it manually. I spent hours using a Facebook-provided feature to click unfollow on each of my friends, groups, and pages.