{"id":310,"date":"2025-04-03T19:10:56","date_gmt":"2025-04-03T19:10:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.readhearsay.ca\/?p=310"},"modified":"2025-04-03T19:15:16","modified_gmt":"2025-04-03T19:15:16","slug":"signing-your-life-away-to-big-tech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.readhearsay.ca\/index.php\/2025\/04\/03\/signing-your-life-away-to-big-tech\/","title":{"rendered":"Signing your life away to big tech?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>X Corp. v. Masjoody<\/em>, <a href=\"https:\/\/canlii.ca\/t\/kb6t7\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">2025 BCCA 89<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">According to X, the platform\u2019s terms of service apply to just about any lawsuit brought by someone with an X account. But BC\u2019s courts don\u2019t seem to agree.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>A bit of context: <\/strong>Dr. Masood Masjoody sued X in BC over tweets he says are defamatory. According to X, he should have sued in California. The company relied on its terms of service, which say that any disputes related to the terms or X\u2019s services need to be litigated in San Francisco.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>The ruling: <\/strong>The BC Court of Appeal (agreeing with the BC Supreme Court), said X\u2019s terms of service don\u2019t cover Dr. Masjoody\u2019s defamation claim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Dr. Masjoody\u2019s claim is not a complaint about what content he has been exposed to on X. It is, rather, a complaint about what the general public can read about him on X, and the impact of that content on his reputation and security. That does not arise from <em>his<\/em> use of or access to X\u2019s services as a member so as to fall within the contract.<\/p>\n<cite><a href=\"https:\/\/canlii.ca\/t\/kb6t7#par26\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Para 26<\/a><\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">X also relied on another part of the contract:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">[X is not liable for damages or intangible losses resulting from] any conduct or content of any third party \u2026 including without limitation, any defamatory, offensive, or illegal conduct of other users or third parties.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But the Court saw two reasons not to let this language block Dr. Masjoody\u2019s claim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The limitation only applies to third party conduct. Since Dr. Masjoody alleges that X directly defamed him by facilitating, maintaining, and even encouraging the allegedly defamatory posts, the alleged misconduct falls outside the limitation.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>And the limitation only covers liability for damages. Since Dr. Masjoody wants an order forcing X to take the posts down, the remedy also falls outside the limitation.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Big picture: <\/strong>This one\u2019s a bit like the case that <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2024\/08\/19\/business\/disney-arbitration-wrongful-death-lawsuit-intl-hnk\/index.html\">blew up in Disney\u2019s face<\/a> last summer \u2014 where the company argued that a man couldn\u2019t sue over his wife\u2019s death because he signed up for an online Disney account. If the X case is any indication, Disney made the right call backing away from that argument after facing public backlash. Judges probably wouldn\u2019t have liked it either.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>According to X, the platform\u2019s terms of service apply to just about any lawsuit brought by someone with an X account. But BC\u2019s courts don\u2019t seem to agree.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":311,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-case-update"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.readhearsay.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.readhearsay.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.readhearsay.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.readhearsay.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.readhearsay.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=310"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.readhearsay.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":315,"href":"https:\/\/blog.readhearsay.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310\/revisions\/315"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.readhearsay.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.readhearsay.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.readhearsay.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.readhearsay.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}