First Amendment · Section 230 · AI Liability

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April 28, 2026

Coverage: 2026-04-21 through 2026-04-28   ·   6 new developments this period

Eric Goldman (Technology & Marketing Law Blog)

The Federal Government Used Jawboning to Censor ICE Transparency Initiatives–Rosado v. Bondi

Eric Goldman (Technology & Marketing Law Blog)  · 2026-04-21

This post analyzes a court order granting preliminary injunctive relief against Trump administration officials (AG Bondi and DHS Secretary Noem) who allegedly pressured Facebook and Apple to remove apps and groups used to track ICE activity, finding the government's public statements taking credit for the removals and the platforms' immediate reversals of prior approval decisions sufficient to establish traceability and likely First Amendment coercion. The case is a direct application of the Bantam Books/Murthy jawboning framework to named technology platforms (Facebook and Apple), with the court finding that explicit government "demands" followed by immediate platform compliance—after prior independent approvals—satisfy the coercion threshold that Murthy left open. The post is significant for the newsletter because it represents a rare successful jawboning claim under the post-Murthy standing framework, with the added doctrinal wrinkle that it involves Apple's App Store removal decisions as well as Facebook content moderation.

Key point: A court found that Trump administration officials likely violated the First Amendment by jawboning Facebook and Apple into removing ICE-tracking tools, with the government's own public statements taking credit for the removals satisfying the traceability and coercion elements that defeated plaintiffs in Murthy v. Missouri.

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Techdirt

Court To Bondi: Demanding Platforms Censor Speech And Bragging About It On Fox News Is, In Fact, A First Amendment Violation

Techdirt  · 2026-04-21

This post covers a Northern District of Illinois preliminary injunction granted against DOJ and DHS, finding that Attorney General Bondi's public demands that Facebook remove an ICE-tracking group and that Apple remove an ICE-monitoring app constituted unconstitutional government coercion of platforms under the First Amendment jawboning doctrine established in Bantam Books v. Sullivan. The case is significant because the government's own public statements — Bondi bragging on Fox News about demanding platform action — supplied the causation and coercive intent evidence that was fatal to plaintiffs in Murthy v. Missouri, making this a strong post-Murthy jawboning case where standing and coercion are unusually easy to establish. The ruling directly advances the newsletter's tracking of Murthy's progeny and the question of what degree of government pressure on platforms constitutes actionable First Amendment coercion.

Key point: A federal court found that the Trump DOJ's public, on-record demands that Facebook and Apple remove apps and groups critical of ICE enforcement constituted unconstitutional jawboning, demonstrating that Murthy's standing barrier is surmountable when government officials openly brag about coercing platforms.

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Eric Goldman (Technology & Marketing Law Blog)

Section 230 Helps Discord Defeat “Defective Design” Claims Regarding Sexual Predation–Jane Doe v. Discord

Eric Goldman (Technology & Marketing Law Blog)  · 2026-04-22

The post analyzes a court ruling granting Discord Section 230 immunity against negligence, strict products liability, and failure-to-warn claims arising from a predator's sexual exploitation of a minor via the platform's messaging features, holding that all of the plaintiff's design-defect theories—unsupervised messaging, lack of phone verification, absence of parental controls, inadequate default safety settings—amounted to editorial publishing choices immunized by §230. The court explicitly rejected attempts to repackage publisher conduct as "torts of omission," reinforcing the principle that failure-to-warn and design-defect claims cannot circumvent §230 when they ultimately require the platform to alter how it monitors, screens, or blocks user content. The ruling is notable for its implicit divergence from social media addiction precedents in California that treat design choices as content-agnostic and thus outside §230's scope, making it relevant to the ongoing circuit-level debate about whether product liability theories targeting platform architecture survive §230.

Key point: The court's holding that all design-defect, negligence, and failure-to-warn claims against Discord are §230-barred—because they each require altering the platform's editorial functions over user messaging—directly engages the contested question of whether product liability theories framed around platform architecture can evade §230 immunity.

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Tech Policy Press

Attorney General Raúl Torrez on What's Next in New Mexico's Case Against Meta

Tech Policy Press  · 2026-04-22

This piece covers New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez discussing the state's ongoing litigation against Meta, which centers on Meta's liability for child sexual exploitation facilitated through its platforms — a case that implicates Section 230 immunity, platform design defect theories, and state enforcement authority over social media companies. New Mexico v. Meta is one of the leading state AG actions testing whether §230 bars state-law claims premised on platform design choices rather than third-party content, making it directly relevant to the newsletter's tracking of how courts distinguish immune publisher functions from non-immune product design decisions. The interview likely addresses litigation strategy, the scope of §230 defenses raised by Meta, and the broader legal landscape for child safety enforcement against platforms.

Key point: New Mexico's case against Meta is a bellwether for whether state attorneys general can use product liability and negligence theories to circumvent §230 immunity by framing claims around platform design rather than third-party content.

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Eric Goldman (Technology & Marketing Law Blog)

Court Enjoins Another Arkansas Segregate-and-Suppress Law–NetChoice v. Griffin

Eric Goldman (Technology & Marketing Law Blog)  · 2026-04-23

The post covers a federal court's preliminary injunction blocking Arkansas Act 900 of 2025, a minor-protection social media law that imposed anti-addiction requirements, nighttime notification defaults, and audit mandates on covered platforms. The court found the anti-addiction provision void for vagueness and the notification restrictions insufficiently tailored, applying First Amendment analysis consistent with the Moody v. NetChoice framework governing government attempts to regulate platform content delivery and design features. The case is directly relevant as an ongoing NetChoice litigation development involving First Amendment challenges to state social media laws targeting platform algorithmic and notification practices affecting minors.

Key point: The court's rejection of Arkansas Act 900 as both vague and insufficiently tailored reinforces the post-Moody framework limiting states' ability to impose content-delivery and design mandates on social media platforms, including restrictions on recommended content and engagement features directed at minors.

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Techdirt

Arkansas Tried To Pass An Unconstitutional Social Media Law. Again. It Lost. Again.

Techdirt  · 2026-04-23

This post covers a Western District of Arkansas preliminary injunction blocking Arkansas Act 900, a revised social media regulation imposing age-related design mandates on platforms — including a ban on "addictive practices," default notification restrictions, and a parental dashboard requirement — each of which failed on First Amendment and vagueness grounds. The court found the "addictive practices" provision unconstitutionally vague because there is no clinical consensus on social media addiction, the strict liability framework was unworkable, and the state could not ask the court to judicially rewrite the statute to save it. The case is directly relevant as a post-Moody v. NetChoice application of First Amendment scrutiny to state social media design mandates, following the NetChoice litigation pattern of states enacting children's online safety laws that fail constitutional review.

Key point: A federal court has again preliminarily enjoined an Arkansas social media regulation — this time Act 900 — finding that its "addictive practices" prohibition is unconstitutionally vague and that its design mandates targeting minors fail First Amendment scrutiny, reinforcing the pattern of state children's online safety laws collapsing under constitutional review.

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Sources: CourtListener API  ·  All 13 federal circuit RSS feeds  ·  All 50 state supreme courts + intermediate appellate courts (8 states) via Justia  ·  Eric Goldman  ·  Techdirt
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