Six4Three, LLC v. Facebook, Inc., et al.

This case arises from a social media platform’s use of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act to immunize itself from claims arising from the platform’s own actions, and from harms caused by the platform’s own product design choices and related speech. In 2007, Facebook created a platform for thirdparty developers, including a set of application programming interfaces (APIs) allowing developers to access platform-generated content such as friends lists and “friends of friends” lists created by Facebook. By 2012, Facebook had turned its developer platform into a fraudulent scheme, telling developers to build their apps around Facebook’s APIs while secretly planning to privatize them for chosen developers in exchange for ad purchases, data deals, and competitive concessions. In 2015, Petitioner Six4Three, a developer whose business was destroyed by Facebook’s API scheme, sued in California state court. The courts below— faced with splits across and within federal judicial circuits and a grab bag of contradictory case law from California appellate courts—held that Facebook’s own speech and product design decisions were immunized from liability under Section 230. The question presented is: Whether Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act immunizes an online platform for its own conduct, speech, and product design choices?