Lawsuit argues Meta is required to let you control own feed

PARIS — Do social media users have the right to control what they see – or don’t see – on their feeds?

A lawsuit filed against Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc. is arguing that a federal law often used to shield internet companies from liability also allows people to use external tools to take control of their feed – even if that means shutting it off entirely.

The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University filed a lawsuit against Meta Platforms on behalf of an Amherst professor who wants to release a tool that enables users to unfollow all the content fed to them by Facebook´s algorithm.

The tool, called Unfollow Everything 2.0, is a browser extension that would let Facebook users unfollow friends, groups and pages and empty their newsfeed – the stream of posts, photos and videos that can keep them scrolling endlessly.

The idea is that without this constant, addicting stream of content, people might use it less. If the past is any indication, Meta will not be keen on the idea, AP reported.

A UK developer, Luis Barclay, released a similar tool, called Unfollow Everything, but he took it down in 2021, fearing a lawsuit after receiving a cease-and-desist letter and a lifetime Facebook ban from Meta, then called Facebook Inc.

With the lawsuit, Ethan Zuckerman, a professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, is trying to beat Meta to the legal punch to avoid getting sued by the social media giant over the browser extension.

“The reason it´s worth challenging Facebook on this is that right now we have very little control as users over how we use these networks,” Zuckerman said in an interview. ”

We basically get whatever controls Facebook wants. And that´s actually pretty different from how the internet has worked historically.” Just think of email, which lets people use different email clients, or different web browsers, or anti-tracking software for people who don’t want to be tracked.

Meta did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment on Wednesday,

The lawsuit filed in federal court in California centers on a provision of Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, which is often used to protect internet companies from liability for things posted on their sites.

A separate clause, though, provides immunity to software developers who create tools that “filter, screen, allow, or disallow content that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable.”

The lawsuit, in other words, asks the court to determine whether Facebook users’ news feed falls into the category of objectionable material that they should be able to filter out in order to enjoy the platform.