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.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
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.”
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