By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 1-22-19
In a victory for online re-publishers of others’ content – in this case specifically online review platform Yelp – the Supreme Court has declined to hear the appeal of a California Supreme Court decision (Hassell vs. Bird) that Yelp was protected from liability under the Communications Decency Act’s section 230.
That is the section, relied upon by social media platforms, that relieves them of liability for third-party content, saying, in part: “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.”
The California Supreme Court had sided with Yelp after Yelp refused a lower court order to remove a negative review, even though the suit involved the individual who posted the review, not Yelp. The California Court of Appeals sided with the lower court and against Yelp, which then sought the California Supreme Court appeal.
The California Supreme Court decision in favor of Yelp was then appealed by the other side to the Supreme Court, which denied the appeal Tuesday in the list of cases for which it did not grant cert. » Read More