Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Teatotaller cafe owner wins Instagram case in court

seacoastonline.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 99 posts

Re: Teatotaller cafe owner wins Instagram case in court

#31

Post by kazinator »

> Soldati’s win wasn’t just a win for him, he said, but a win for all Instagram users and small business owners who have faced similar problems with the tech company.

This is just boilerplate nonsense used in every story like this.

It is false. It was purely just a win for him. Anyone else wanting to sue Meta over a deleted account will have to go through almost exactly the same thing.

The fact that Soldati may have set a precedent will at best only be a minor optimization in the entire bureaucratic mess.

Re: Teatotaller cafe owner wins Instagram case in court

#32

Post by cube00 »

> Despite Facebook hiring several law firms to defend their case, Soldati, representing himself, was able to successfully argue Meta/Facebook committed a breach of contract and that they were not immune under the Communications Decency Act.

Very impressive going up against Meta's army of lawyers.

Re: Teatotaller cafe owner wins Instagram case in court

#33

Post by tracker1 »

wizardforhire wrote: post #27
kiba wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like there's a job for people who knows the bird eye's view as well as the ground truth of an organization.

Thats crazy talk, what would such a role even be called?

If it were like a military thing. They'd likely be an officer, maybe even a chief of some kind.

Re: Teatotaller cafe owner wins Instagram case in court

#34

Post by mthoms »

latchkey wrote: post #14

"In court, Soldati said Facebook attorneys were condescending and patronizing to him, but he took it seriously because it was his livelihood and because he thought that someone needed to fight them. He says it was “100%” worth it. Gary Burt, a Manchester lawyer who represented Meta in the New Hampshire Supreme Court as well as the Dover District Court, did not immediately respond to a request to comment for this stor…

Yeah, he looks really friendly.

According to that page, he has defended both a "landlord in a million dollar lead paint claim" and an "oil delivery company against a million dollar pollution claim".

I'm sure he's a lovely person though.

Re: Teatotaller cafe owner wins Instagram case in court

#35

Post by tracker1 »

phire wrote: post #17
gumby wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A crack in Section 230 would be disastrous. But this doesn't look like a crack at all, and IG never tried to claim that they had deliberately chosen to delete the account. That might even have pushed it under Section 230!

It was a pretty shitty defence. Facebook were trying to argue that Section 230 somehow gave them immunity from their own terms and conditions.

Let alone a contract with payments involved. Too bad they weren't hit with tortious interference.

Re: Teatotaller cafe owner wins Instagram case in court

#36

Post by swores »

danielheath wrote: post #30
dylan604 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm reading as why did Meta not pay its employees internally to resolve this matter instead of paying attorneys to litigate this case. The assumption being that an employee is already on the payroll so just give them an assignment instead of giving money to lawyers. I'm guessing their arrogance told them they'd never lose the case and it would be worth it to set precedence. Only it might have backfired

I'd expect the legal team were employees, too. They had to either fight the case, or figure out what team could actually sort this out and convince their manager to take a look. In the unlikely event they managed the first of those tasks, the second would present an insurmountable hurdle.

> "I'd expect the legal team were employees, too."

The article actually says this:

> "Despite Facebook hiring several law firms to defend their case, Soldati, representing himself, was able to successfully argue Meta/Facebook committed a breach of contract and that they were not immune under the Communications Decency Act"

(edited out how I originally wrongly introduced this quote)

Re: Teatotaller cafe owner wins Instagram case in court

#37

Post by eek2121 »

kazinator wrote: post #31

> Soldati’s win wasn’t just a win for him, he said, but a win for all Instagram users and small business owners who have faced similar problems with the tech company. This is just boilerplate nonsense used in every story like this. It is false. It was purely just a win for him. Anyone else wanting to sue Meta over a deleted account will have to go through almost exactly the same thing. The fact that Soldati may have…

This shows you have no idea how the US court system works.

Meta's defeat leads to a build up of case law, making it harder for meta and similar companies to win unlike class action lawsuits, which lead to nothing.

It does take time for these cases to build up the appeals process and such, but it does get there.

In short, he does win in the short term, but everyone wins in the long term.

Re: Teatotaller cafe owner wins Instagram case in court

#38

Post by eek2121 »

silisili wrote: post #2

I don't get this. Why not pay an employee to take a few hours, ask a person from the necessary team to take a look, then call or write the complainant? That -has- to be cheaper than getting all these lawyers involved over what was probably, as the article states, a glitch of some sort.

Big tech companies don't get big and stay big by hiring tons of humans to handle cases like these. Don't believe me? Try asking Google to fix a problem or Facebook or Twitter. (Apple is the exception, but they are much older and even they have issues)

Re: Teatotaller cafe owner wins Instagram case in court

#39

Post by dylan604 »

danielheath wrote: post #30
dylan604 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm reading as why did Meta not pay its employees internally to resolve this matter instead of paying attorneys to litigate this case. The assumption being that an employee is already on the payroll so just give them an assignment instead of giving money to lawyers. I'm guessing their arrogance told them they'd never lose the case and it would be worth it to set precedence. Only it might have backfired

I'd expect the legal team were employees, too. They had to either fight the case, or figure out what team could actually sort this out and convince their manager to take a look. In the unlikely event they managed the first of those tasks, the second would present an insurmountable hurdle.

even when evilCorp has their own in house team of evilLawyers, they normally hire outside evilLawyers to handle the cases at trial. in house evilLawyers might not have court/trial experience, and the type of evilLawyer that likes court/trial tend to not like office evilLawyer work. also, in house evilLawyer might not be registered in the state of the trial.

Re: Teatotaller cafe owner wins Instagram case in court

#40

Post by macintux »

mthoms wrote: post #34
latchkey wrote: post #14

"In court, Soldati said Facebook attorneys were condescending and patronizing to him, but he took it seriously because it was his livelihood and because he thought that someone needed to fight them. He says it was “100%” worth it. Gary Burt, a Manchester lawyer who represented Meta in the New Hampshire Supreme Court as well as the Dover District Court, did not immediately respond to a request to comment for this stor…

Yeah, he looks really friendly. According to that page, he has defended both a "landlord in a million dollar lead paint claim" and an "oil delivery company against a million dollar pollution claim". I'm sure he's a lovely person though.

Reminds me of the West Wing conversation between Josh and Sam.

> What are you doing?

> Protecting oil companies from litigation. They're our client. They don't lose legal protection because they make a lot of money.

> I can't believe no one ever wrote a folk song about that.

Post reply on HN