Hours after the X platform, formerly known as Twitter, sued to block enforcement of AB-587, California’s new social media law, the bill's author, Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel (D), defended the statute as “a pure transparency measure that simply requires companies to be upfront about if and how they are moderating content,” Gabriel tweeted in a statement Friday.
DOJ attorneys convinced a three-judge 5th U.S. Circuit Appeals Court panel, all Republicans, that U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty’s July 4 injunction was overbroad and vague when it barred dozens of Biden administration officials from pressuring social media platforms to moderate unfavorable content. But the panel’s opinion late Friday (docket 23-30445), paring down the injunction and vacating it outright against officials from three federal agencies, left intact the restrictions on the White House, the Office of the Surgeon General, the FBI and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals vacated a district court’s ruling dismissing a chiropractic office’s Telephone Consumer Protection Act complaint and remanded the case for further proceedings, in a Wednesday decision (docket 22-1279).
Verizon agreed to pay a $4.09 million civil penalty, including $2.73 million in restitution, to resolve allegations under the False Claims Act that Verizon Business Network Services failed to completely satisfy certain cybersecurity controls in connection with the Managed Trusted Internet Protocol Service (MTIPS) it provided to federal agencies, said DOJ Tuesday.
Microsoft’s proposed Activision Blizzard buy involves a “vertical merger” of the sort that the U.S. antitrust agencies “have rarely sought to enjoin” and have lost “every recent case in which they tried.” So said the Microsoft-Activision 9th Circuit answering brief Wednesday (docket 23-15992) in the FTC’s appeal of U.S. District Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley’s denial of its preliminary injunction to block the transaction from going through (see 2307110061).
In light of the agreement in principle that Google just reached with 20 named individual consumers and all 50 states, plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, to settle the consolidated Play Store antitrust litigation, the parties want U.S. District Judge James Donato for Northern California in San Francisco to vacate the Nov. 6 trial date and all pretrial deadlines and pending motions, said their stipulation and proposed order Tuesday (docket 3:21-cv-05227).
Indiana Attorney General Theodore Rokita (R) went to U.S. District Court for Indiana in Indianapolis Tuesday seeking a permanent injunction to enjoin MV Realty, five of its subsidiaries and three of its officers “from further pursuit of an aggressive and illegal robocalling and telemarketing operation” targeting Indiana homeowners, said his complaint (docket 1:23-cv-01578).
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals should reverse the district court’s declaratory judgment absolving Charter Communications of any further monetary obligations under a 1964 revenue-sharing cable-permit agreement signed by the predecessor companies of Charter and Prewitt Management, said Prewitt’s opening appellant brief Tuesday (docket 23-50419).
Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares (R) and the Institute for Family Studies seek leave to file amicus briefs opposing a preliminary injunction to block Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen (R) from enforcing SB-419, the state’s TikTok ban, when it takes effect Jan. 1 (see 2307070002), said their separate motions Friday (docket 9:23-cv-00061) in U.S. District Court for Montana in Missoula. Both motions are unopposed, they said.
U.S. District Judge Brenda Sannes for Northern New York in Syracuse granted in part and denied in part AT&T’s motion for summary judgment against the town of Corinth, New York, and denied the town’s cross-motion for summary judgment against AT&T, said her signed memorandum-decision and order Friday (docket 1:21-cv-00149). AT&T sued in February 2021, alleging the town violated the Telecommunications Act when it denied the carrier’s site plan application to build a 150-foot-tall monopole cell tower (see 2302060030).