Ethan Zuckerman sues to stop Meta from blocking his planned Unfollow Everything 2.0 extension that would let Facebook users tune or even turn off their Feed
Academic Ethan Zuckerman is suing Meta to win protections for add-ons that help researchers study the platform and give users more control over their feeds.
WiredVittoria Elliott
Context & Ripple Effects
The case centers on whether an independent add-on can alter the FacebookFeed and support platform research without being shut out by Meta. It places user-level feed control and researcher access in direct tension with a platform’s ability to set the technical rules of participation.
The dispute later reached an unfavorable procedural outcome for Zuckerman, when a judge dismissed his bid to prevent a Meta suit over the tool. That makes this filing a useful marker of how difficult it can be to establish protection for third-party interventions before they are deployed.
First-order effects
Zuckerman’s suit asks a court to protect the planned Unfollow Everything 2.0 extension, which is intended to let Facebook users tune or switch off their Feed while enabling related research.
Meta must defend its ability to block or challenge a tool that would change how users experience a core Facebook surface; users do not receive the proposed controls simply because the suit was filed.
Second-order effects
The case puts other developers of feed-modifying and research tools on notice that access to a platform’s interface can become a legal, not merely technical, constraint.
A favorable protection for the extension could lower the barrier to user-controlled alternatives to the default Feed; the later dismissal of the case instead underscores the uncertainty those developers face.
Third-order effects
The underlying question is whether dominant platforms can unilaterally determine the permissible uses of their services when those uses challenge default engagement design. Court outcomes in individual cases can shape that boundary without resolving it across the industry.
If disputes of this kind persist, access to user-selected controls and independent platform research is likely to be contested through a mix of platform rules, litigation, and access-control policy rather than left solely to product design.
The trend: This is one data point in the widening contest over platform gatekeepers’ control of interfaces, user choice, and independent research access.
There's a lot of case law on Section 230's limitation of platforms' liability for content posted by users, but not much on whether a subsection protects creators of tools that let users control how they access the internet, EFF's Sophia Cope told @WIRED. https://www.wired.com/...
Unfollow Everything is dead! Long live Unfollow Everything 2.0! I'm absolutely over the moon at the news of this lawsuit by @EthanZ 🍾 https://www.wired.com/...
This suit against Meta by @EthanZ w counsel from @knightcolumbia has everything. Section 230 interpretive fights galore, all on behalf of middleware providers, and with implications for researchers. And copyright and DMCA 1201 claims waiting in the wings! https://www.wired.com/..…
Facebook has come after me for my Demetricators multiple times. Glad to see this lawsuit by @ethanz. The browser is the domain of the user, not the platform.
I do think social networks should allow browser extensions for customization... ...but lol, @EthanZuckerman's Unfollow Everything won't “turn off” the algorithm. It'd just give Fb unlimited power to recommend random viral crap with no friends in the way https://www.wired.com/...
@EthanZ @knightcolumbia It made me so sad and nostalgic for the days when I covered all of this in my class (and practice)! Now I am not even fully up to date on CFAA and 1201 pieces, sigh.
With my brilliant friends at @knightcolumbia , I filed suit against Meta today, asking a federal court to find that CDA section 230 gives users rights to control what they see on social media via third party tools. See our complaint at [Link]
I'm in a lot of little fragmented conversations about this case against Meta (which I like to think of as Zuckerman v. Zuckerberg or ZvZ though that isn't the real caption). So here is a brain dump. Corrections welcome, especially from @EthanZ or @knightcolumbia. 1/
There's a lot of case law on Section 230's limitation of platforms' liability for content posted by users, but not much on whether a subsection protects creators of tools that let users control how they access the internet, EFF's @scopesetic told @WIRED. https://www.wired.com/...
@daphnehk ... Surprised that Knight got involved - seems like a fringe lawsuit with very shaky theories. I guess if Columbia is going to destroy its brand (eg US News ratings drops, standardized score optional, violent pro-Hamas student protests), you can add filing fringe tech l…
For years platforms have used 230 to protect themselves from legal liability for user generated content. Now, new lawsuit from @knightcolumbia says the law has another application: letting users control their feeds. @WIRED https://www.wired.com/...
@rao_hacker_one ... Figuring out what the legal barriers are (and aren't) for the basic mechanics of things like scraping or automated tools for users to set preferences is, IMO, really important.
.@EthanZ is my hero. Every case against surveillance capitalists gets us closer to banning the business model. Platforms assert that 1A and 230 entitle them to knowingly harm their users for profit. Eventually a judge will see this as total BS and rule against the platforms.
Super interesting: Zuckerman v Meta is part of the global movement from algorithmic transparency towards algorithmic choice. In this book chapter I explored how algorithmic choice could be achieved in the EU under the DMA: https://link.springer.com/...
Thank you for this pioneering lawsuit @EthanZ! Our relationship with social media would be so much better if we could break the platforms' stranglehold on the algorithms. My piece on the need for algorithmic choice: https://www.nytimes.com/... https://www.wired.com/...