The most famous social media court cases include Gonzalez v. Google and Twitter v. Taamneh on platform immunity, Moody v. NetChoice on state content moderation laws, Murthy v. Missouri on government pressure to remove posts, Lindke v. Freed on officials blocking constituents, Counterman v. Colorado on criminal threats, the Depp–Heard and Cardi B defamation trials, NLRB v. Pier Sixty on firings over posts, Facebook’s $5 billion FTC penalty and $650 million BIPA settlement, and Allied Concrete Co. v. Lester on deleting evidence. Together these decisions set the ground rules for almost everything that happens on a social platform.
Gonzalez v. Google and Twitter v. Taamneh
Both cases, decided in 2023, asked whether social media companies could be held responsible for terrorist content on their services. The families of victims argued that algorithmic recommendations amounted to more than passive hosting.
In Gonzalez v. Google, the Supreme Court declined to decide whether YouTube’s recommendation algorithm strips away the immunity granted by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which protects platforms from being treated as the publisher of user content.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 47 USC 230 – Protection for Private Blocking and Screening of Offensive Material The Court vacated the lower ruling and sent the case back without reaching the question.2Supreme Court of the United States. Gonzalez v. Google LLC
Twitter v. Taamneh, decided the same term, was more decisive. A unanimous Court held that platforms do not aid and abet terrorism simply by hosting content from terrorist organizations through content-neutral algorithms.3Supreme Court of the United States. Twitter Inc. v. Taamneh The opinion compared social media infrastructure to email or cell service: useful to criminals, but not legally culpable for existing.
Section 230 has one major statutory carve-out. FOSTA-SESTA, passed in 2018, allows civil lawsuits and state criminal prosecution against platforms when conduct on their service violates federal sex trafficking laws.4Congress.gov. FOSTA-SESTA Enrolled Bill Text A newer wave of lawsuits tries a different route, suing Meta, Snap, and TikTok under product liability theories that target platform design rather than specific posts. In 2024, the Supreme Court signaled in Doe v. Snap Inc. that courts may have extended Section 230 far beyond its original scope.5Supreme Court of the United States. Doe v. Snap Inc. Whether that theory survives is still unresolved.
Moody v. NetChoice
Florida and Texas passed laws in 2021 that tried to stop large platforms from removing posts based on political viewpoints. The platforms sued, and the consolidated case reached the Supreme Court in 2024.
The Court recognized that platforms engage in protected First Amendment expression when they curate feeds, deciding what to display, how to rank it, and what to remove.6Legal Information Institute. Moody v. NetChoice LLC A state cannot force private speakers to carry views they would otherwise exclude. The Court stopped short of striking down either law entirely, sending both back to the lower courts for provision-by-provision analysis. Broad mandates forcing platforms to host all legal speech face serious constitutional problems; narrower transparency rules may survive.
Murthy v. Missouri
Two states and several users sued the federal government in 2024, arguing that White House communications with social media companies about COVID-19 and election posts amounted to coerced censorship.
The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that the plaintiffs lacked standing. Justice Barrett’s opinion found that none of them could show a substantial risk of future injury traceable to a specific government defendant and fixable by a court order.7Congress.gov. Murthy v. Missouri – The First Amendment and Government Involvement with Social Media Platforms The underlying question — when does a government request to a platform become unconstitutional coercion — was left open and will likely return in a future case.
Lindke v. Freed
Does a public official violate the First Amendment by blocking critics on social media? The Supreme Court answered in 2024.
Under the two-part test from Lindke v. Freed, an official’s social media activity counts as government action only when the official had actual authority to speak for the government on the topic and appeared to be exercising that authority in the specific posts at issue.8Supreme Court of the United States. Lindke v. Freed Listing a job title on a personal page is not enough. Posting official announcements, soliciting public input, or routing constituents to government services can cross the line. Courts may need to evaluate individual posts rather than an entire account.
Counterman v. Colorado
Billy Counterman sent a local musician hundreds of Facebook messages over two years. She obtained a restraining order; he was convicted of making threats under Colorado law.
The Supreme Court reversed in 2023, holding that the First Amendment requires prosecutors to prove more than that a reasonable person would read the messages as threatening. The government must show that the defendant was at least reckless, meaning he consciously disregarded a substantial risk that his words would be understood as threats of violence.9Supreme Court of the United States. Counterman v. Colorado The ruling matters especially online, where sarcasm, hyperbole, and missing context can make objectively alarming messages look very different to the person who sent them.
The Depp–Heard and Cardi B Defamation Trials
The 2022 Virginia trial between Johnny Depp and Amber Heard turned on a newspaper op-ed that implied Depp had abused Heard without naming him. The jury found the implication was clear enough to be actionable and awarded Depp $10 million in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages, reduced to $10.35 million total under Virginia’s statutory cap. Heard won $2 million on her counterclaim.
That same year, Cardi B won more than $4 million in federal court against YouTuber Latasha Kebe, who posts as Tasha K and had published dozens of videos making false claims about the rapper’s personal life and health. The award included $1.3 million in legal fees.
Public figures suing for defamation must prove “actual malice” under New York Times Co. v. Sullivan: that the defendant either knew the statement was false or recklessly disregarded whether it was true. Private individuals typically need to show only negligence.
Anti-SLAPP Defenses
Defamation lawsuits can themselves be used to silence critics through litigation costs rather than genuine reputational claims. Roughly 38 states and the District of Columbia have anti-SLAPP laws that let defendants file an early motion to dismiss, shifting the burden to the plaintiff to show a realistic chance of winning. Defendants who prevail can often recover attorney fees.
NLRB v. Pier Sixty
Most American workers can be fired for what they post on their own time. At-will employment lets private employers terminate for almost any reason, and the First Amendment restrains only the government. The main exception is the National Labor Relations Act, which protects employees who discuss wages, schedules, benefits, and workplace problems with coworkers, including on social media.10National Labor Relations Board. Social Media The speech must relate to group action; personal venting is not protected.
In NLRB v. Pier Sixty, LLC, a catering server posted a profanity-laden Facebook rant about a supervisor during a union organizing drive, ending with “Vote YES for the UNION!!!!” The company fired him. The Second Circuit upheld the labor board’s finding that the firing was unlawful, because the post was tied to active organizing and addressed real workplace grievances.11Justia. NLRB v. Pier Sixty LLC, No. 15-1841 (2d Cir. 2017) Vulgar language did not cross into the kind of egregiously offensive speech that would strip NLRA protection.
Protection has limits. Leaking trade secrets, violating patient privacy rules, or posting what amounts to harassment is not shielded. Employers that use third-party services to screen applicants’ social media must comply with the Fair Credit Reporting Act, which requires disclosure, consent, and a chance to contest adverse decisions.12Federal Trade Commission. The Fair Credit Reporting Act and Social Media – What Businesses Should Know
The Facebook Privacy Settlements
Two Facebook cases produced the largest social media privacy penalties on record.
After reports in 2018 revealed that a third-party app had harvested data from up to 87 million Facebook profiles and funneled it to Cambridge Analytica for political advertising, the Federal Trade Commission found that Facebook had violated a 2012 consent order on data protection and privacy honesty. The 2019 settlement imposed a $5 billion penalty, roughly twenty times larger than any previous privacy enforcement action worldwide, plus structural reforms governing how the company handles personal information.13Federal Trade Commission. FTC Imposes $5 Billion Penalty and Sweeping New Privacy Restrictions on Facebook The FTC continues to scrutinize platform data practices under Section 5 of the FTC Act, which prohibits deceptive and unfair business practices.14Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 45 – Unfair Methods of Competition Unlawful
The second case involved Facebook’s “Tag Suggestions” feature, which scanned uploaded photos and matched faces to a database of identified users. Illinois users brought a class action under the state’s Biometric Information Privacy Act, which has required consent for collecting faceprints and fingerprints since 2008. Facebook settled in 2020 for $650 million. BIPA authorizes damages of $1,000 to $5,000 per violation, which is what gave the suit its leverage.
Children’s Privacy
The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act gives parents control over data collection from children under 13 and requires operators of child-directed services to get verifiable parental consent before gathering personal information.15Federal Trade Commission. Children’s Privacy The FTC has pursued COPPA enforcement against gaming platforms and smart-speaker makers.
Allied Concrete Co. v. Lester
Anything on social media can be pulled into litigation. Courts have consistently held that relevant content must be produced in discovery regardless of privacy settings, and no court has recognized a social media privilege. The dangerous move is deleting posts once a lawsuit is filed or reasonably anticipated.
In Allied Concrete Co. v. Lester, a personal injury plaintiff deleted social media content on his attorney’s advice after filing suit. The Virginia Supreme Court imposed $180,000 in sanctions against the plaintiff and $542,000 against his attorney for the willful destruction. Courts can also instruct juries that deleted content would have hurt the party who destroyed it, which is often more damaging at trial than whatever the posts actually showed.
Copyright and the DMCA
No single case has defined copyright on social media the way the decisions above have defined their areas, but the Digital Millennium Copyright Act supplies the framework. Under its safe harbor provisions, a platform avoids liability for user-uploaded content as long as it lacks actual knowledge of infringement, does not profit directly from infringement it could control, and removes material promptly after a proper takedown notice.16Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 17 USC 512 – Limitations on Liability Relating to Material Online Platforms must designate an agent for copyright complaints and maintain repeat-infringer policies. Users who believe their work was wrongfully removed can file a counter-notification, which may restore the content unless the copyright holder files suit. Whether a repost qualifies as fair use depends on transformation, amount taken, and market harm, and credit lines or disclaimers like “no copyright infringement intended” carry no legal weight.