A claim from a researcher tried to develop The Unfollow Everything 2.0 browser extension for Facebook has been removed for now. The New York Times informed. Ethan Zuckerman of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University tried to use the Section 230 technology shield law in a new way to allow Meta to develop a tool that would clean up a Facebook user’s feed.
For the background, Zuckerman was inspired by a project called “” for 2021.Track everythingThis would allow people to use Facebook without a News Feed, or to curate it to only show posts by certain people. However, Facebook sued the UK man who created the extension and permanently disabled his account.
To avoid a similar fate, Zuckerman invoked Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996. While this is primarily intended as a shield to protect tech platforms from illegal user activity, there is a separate clause that protects developers of third-party tools that “allow people to … block content they deem acceptable.” He asked the court to recognize this clause and allow him to create the Unfollow Everything 2.0 browser extension without Meta’s echo.
However, the court granted Meta’s motion to dismiss the suit, adding that the researcher could file it at a later date. “We are disappointed that the court believes Professor Zuckerman needs to code the instrument before settling the case,” Zuckerman’s lawyer said. “We continue to believe that Section 230 protects user empowerment tools and look forward to the court’s further consideration of this argument.” A Meta spokesman said the claim was “baseless”.
Meta has shut down researchers before, eliminates Facebook accounts of NYU team trying to learn political ad targeting in 2021. Conversely, in 2022, Meta contributed to 48 million scientific articles. An AI system called Galacticait was shut down after just two days due to misinformation.
