Meta has actually beat a claim– in the meantime– that tried to conjure up Section 230 defenses for a third-party tool that would have made it simple for Facebook users to toggle on and off their news feeds as they pleased.

The claim was submitted by Ethan Zuckerman, a teacher at University of Massachusetts Amherst. He feared that Meta may take legal action against to obstruct his tool, Unfollow Everything 2.0, due to the fact that Meta threatened to take legal action against to obstruct the initial tool when it was launched by another designer. In May, Zuckerman informed Ars that he was “suing Facebook to make it better” and prepared to utilize Section 230’s guard to do it.

Zuckerman’s unique legal theory argued that Congress constantly planned for Section 230 to secure third-party tools developed to empower users to take control over possibly poisonous online environments. In his problem, Zuckerman attempted to persuade a United States district court in California that:

Area 230(c)( 2 )(B) inoculates from legal liability “a provider of software or enabling tools that filter, screen, allow, or disallow content that the provider or user considers obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable.” Through this arrangement, Congress meant to promote the advancement of filtering tools that make it possible for users to curate their online experiences and prevent material they would rather not see.

Digital rights supporters, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the Center for Democracy and Technology, and the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, supported Zuckerman’s case, prompting that the court safeguard middleware. On Thursday, Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley gave Meta’s movement to dismiss at a hearing.

Corley has not yet published her order on the movement to dismiss, however Zuckerman’s attorneys at the Knight Institute validated to Ars that their Section 230 argument did not element into her choice. In a declaration, attorneys stated that Corley left the door open on the Section 230 claims, and EFF senior personnel lawyer Sophia Cope, who was at the hearing, informed Ars Corley concurred that on “the merits the case raises important issues.”