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Law’s Andrew Geronimo discussed bringing lawsuits against social media platforms

Ethan Liming family attorney considering a lawsuit against TikTok and toy-gun manufacturer after teen’s death

Headshot of Andrew Geronimo

WEWS: Andrew Geronimo, lecturer of law and director of the First Amendment Clinic, shared the difficulty in suing social media platforms, citing a federal law called Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. “The platforms are not to be treated as the publisher or speaker of the things that appear on their platforms,” he said. “They’re sort of conduits for speech. If I go on Facebook and defame somebody on Facebook, Section 230 says you can’t hold Facebook responsible for that, you have to go to the end user, the person who actually said it.”