Large Roundup of Section 230 Rulings - Technology & Marketing Law Blog
Technology & Marketing Law Blog
Menu<br>Biography
Academic Materials
Writing
Presentations
Resources
Courses
Advertising & Marketing Law
Contract Law
Copyright Law
Internet Law
IP Survey
Legal Ethics
Contact
Blogs
Tertium Quid Blog
Eric Goldman’s Personal Blog
About the Blogger
Browse: Home<br>" 2026<br>" July<br>" Large Roundup of Section 230 Rulings
Large Roundup of Section 230 Rulings
July 9, 2026 · by Eric Goldman · in Content Regulation, Copyright, Derivative Liability, E-Commerce, Licensing/Contracts, Publicity/Privacy Rights, Trademark
This blog post rounds up nearly 20 Section 230 cases (and adjacent cases), mostly from the past four months, that for whatever reason I didn’t cover in a standalone blog post. Section 230’s effects are waning overall, but this post will show that Section 230 still efficiently resolves many routine and pro se cases.
Coomer v. Lindell, 2026 WL 817370 (D. Colo. March 25, 2026)
Related post. This is more fallout from the efforts to deny the 2020 presidential election results. MyPillows huckster Lindell publicly trashed Dominion Voting and and its president, Coomer. A jury held Lindell and Frankspeech liable for defamation and more. The defendants unsuccessfully tried to overturn the jury verdict post-trial.
Frankspeech invoked Section 230 for its liability for Lindell’s speech. The court disagrees:
Mr. Lindell founded Frankspeech. He regularly acted as its corporate representative, including at trial. He hosted his own show on Frankspeech, broadcasted it through Frankspeech, and used the Frankspeech platform to make and publish statements about Dr. Coomer. There is no evidence that anyone other than Mr. Lindell exercised any meaningful degree of control over the Frankspeech entity. By all accounts, Frankspeech was Mr. Lindell’s corporate alter ego in this context….for § 230 purposes, Frankspeech’s defamatory statements through its agent would plainly qualify as participation in the development of those statements.
Frankspeech also claimed Section 230 for Clement’s remarks at a conference. The court responds: "Frankspeech—through Mr. Lindell and others—sponsored, promoted, and broadcasted the event….a reasonable jury could conclude that Frankspeech’s conduct (including its conduct through Mr. Lindell) created actual or apparent authority for Mr. Clements and other presenters at the Cyber Symposium to act as agents of Frankspeech."
Murphy v. LinkedIn Corp., 2026 WL 881710 (N.D. Cal. March 30, 2026)
Fraudsters approached Murphy via LinkedIn direct messages. The conversation switched over to WhatsApp, where the fraudsters effectuated their fraud. Murphy’s lawsuit against LinkedIn fails due to Section 230:
Plaintiffs’ claims for negligence, gross negligence, and product liability are premised on a purported duty to “monitor” users, “restrict the accounts of fraudulent actors,” and to suppress “fraudulent activities” by users of LinkedIn’s platform. These claims “necessarily implicate” LinkedIn’s role as a publisher of third-party content because “discharging the alleged duty would require [LinkedIn] to monitor third-party content and prevent” communications between fraudsters and legitimate LinkedIn users. Nor can Plaintiffs sue LinkedIn for breaching a “duty to warn.” LinkedIn’s “role as a publisher of third-party content does not give it a duty to warn users of ‘a general possibility of harm’ resulting from” using LinkedIn’s services.
The plaintiffs unsuccessfully tried the defective design workaround:
Plaintiffs argue that their claims are not based on LinkedIn’s role as publisher, but rather its role “as a product manufacturer and developer of defective algorithms” that facilitated communications between fraudsters and Plaintiffs. But the Ninth Circuit has repeatedly upheld dismissal of negligence and product liability claims framed in the same way. [cites to Doe v. Grindr and Dyroff]
A Roommates.com workaround didn’t work either:
Plaintiffs’ claims are premised on LinkedIn’s neutral tools for connecting users, not on content that LinkedIn created or required users to provide as a condition of using its services. Indeed, LinkedIn expressly informs users that they “have choices about the information” on their profiles, and that users “don’t have to post or upload personal data” that may make them targets of fraud.
To put a finer point on it, if the plaintiffs are complaining about LinkedIn direct messages, then those messages may be covered by the ECPA just like email, and LinkedIn may have had limited legal rights to monitor the conversations at all.
Finally, the plaintiffs tried a TOS-based workaround, poured into consumer protection laws. The court acknowledges that some breach of contract claims may not be preempted by Section 230, but
These claims are premised on the same duties discussed above – duties to monitor, to design products in a different manner, and...