Calise v. Meta Platforms, Inc.

Issue: Whether § 230 bars claims that Meta's advertising targeting algorithm matched vulnerable users with fraudulent investment and romance scam advertisements, causing financial losses.

Plaintiffs alleged that Meta's ad-targeting system — using behavioral data to identify and serve targeted advertising to specific users — affirmatively matched them as susceptible targets with fraudulent advertisers operating scams. They argued that Meta's algorithm was not mere publication of third-party ads but Meta's own independent commercial product that selected victims for scammers. The Ninth Circuit applied Barnes v. Yahoo! and held that § 230 did not bar claims that arose from Meta's own product — the targeting algorithm — rather than from Meta's publication of the fraudulent ad content. Claims treating Meta as the developer of its own matching product were not barred; claims treating Meta as the publisher of the ads were.

Applied and extended Barnes v. Yahoo! to Meta's advertising infrastructure, distinguishing between Meta-as-publisher (immune) and Meta-as-developer of its own targeting product (not immune). An important precedent for claims that a platform's monetization algorithms — not just its content-hosting function — can constitute independent conduct outside § 230's reach.