Meta Faces Professor Lawsuit Over User Control Of Facebook

Facebook users may have better control over using the social media platform if a college professor wins a lawsuit against its owner, Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META).

Ethan Zuckerman, a public policy professor at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, filed a suit against the tech giant as part of a quest to release a browser extension called Unfollow Everything 2.0.

The extension, which is being developed by Zuckerman, would allow users to unfollow their friends, groups, and pages in one fell swoop, and, in doing so, to effectively turn off their newsfeed, according to court documents.

“Users who download the tool would be free to use the platform without the feed, or to curate the feed by refollowing only those friends and groups whose posts they really want to see,” the suit said.

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Zuckerman is basing the suit on Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which gives users control over how they access the Internet.

“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,” the suit said.

Facebook already allows users to manually unfollow friends, groups, and pages one at a time, but “doing so for hundreds or even thousands of friends, groups, and pages is cumbersome and time-consuming,” the suit stated.

“Unfollow Everything 2.0 streamlines the process, while protecting user privacy,” it said.

Meta has filed a motion to dismiss the suit, according to a company spokesperson.

"This suit is baseless, and was filed over a hypothetical browser extension that has not even been built.”

Price Action: Meta has gained 0.77% to $530.79 as of Wednesday’s mid-day trading. Exchange-traded funds that cover the stock also trended upward.

• Direxion Daily META Bull 2X Shares (NASDAQ:METU) rose 1.52%
• Fidelity MSCI Communication Services Index ETF (NYSE:FCOM) edged up 0.13%
• Communication Services Select Sector SPDR Fund (NYSE:XLC) went up 0.17%
• IShares Global Comm Services ETF (NYSE:IXP) gained 0.03%
• Vanguard Communication Services ETF (NYSE:VOX) picked up 0.04%

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