Cover Sheet and Complaint
Cover Sheet and Complaint
Cover Sheet and Complaint
(b) County of Residence of First Listed Plaintiff .=L=it=ch"'f"'ie=l=d_ _ _ __ _ County of Residence of First Listed Defendant
(EXCEPT IN U.S. PLAINTIFF CASES) (IN U.S. PLAINTIFF CASES ONLY)
NOTE: IN LAND CONDEMNATION CASES. USE THE LOCATION OF
THE TRACT OF LAND INVOL YED.
(c) Attorneys (Firm Name. Address. and Telephone Number) Attorneys (If Known)
Norman A. Pattis, Pattis & Smith. LLC
383 Orange Street. New Haven, Ct 06511
203-393-3017
II. BASIS OF JURISDICTION (place an "X" in One Box Only) III. CITIZENSIDP OF PRINCIPAL PARTIES (place an "X" in One Boxfor Plaintiff
(For Diversity Cases Only) and One Box for Defendant)
01 U.S . Govenunent Qlf:3 Federal Question PTF DEF PTF DEF
Plaintiff (U.S. Government Not a Party) Citizen of This State tX I 0 1 IncOIporated or Principal Place 0 4 0 4
of Business In This State
02 U.S. Government a4 Diversity Citizen of Another State a 2 0 2 Incorporated and Principal Place o 5 05
Defendant (Indicate Citizenship ofParties in Item III) of Business In Another State
CAMERON L. ATKINSON,
Plaintiff, CV_________________
v.
FACEBOOK, INC.,
MARK ZUCKERBERG,
Defendants. November 12, 2019
COMPLAINT
1. This is an action for money damages and injunctive relief against Facebook,
a social media company and personal data harvester, and its founder and current chief
executive officer, Mark Zuckerberg. The defendants seek to, and do, have quasi-
access to their service free of charge while surreptitiously selling data gathered from the
users to third parties for a profit. The defendants enter into adhesion contracts with users,
arrogating unto the defendants an opaque right to ban any user for violating the
defendants' so-called "community standards." The Plaintiff has been denied the ability to
speak publicly on a matter of grave public importance based on the perceived content of
the ideas he sought to express. The Plaintiff claims a violation of his rights under the First
Act, statutory fraud, theft, a breach of the implied warranty of fair dealing, and violations
that give rise to the claim occurred in the judicial district of Connecticut. The Claim arises
Parties
County, Connecticut. At the time of this action being brought, he is a third-year law student
California. It operates a social media company serving more than 2.3 billion users
worldwide.
Inc., owning a controlling interest in the company's stock. He resides in Palo Alto,
California.
Carolina, 137 U.S. 1735, 1735-36-(2017}, Facebook is part of the "vast democratic forum
of the Internet." Packingham extended the concept of a quintessential public forum from
public forum of the Internet, and is one of four American companies dominating Internet
10. Many billions of messages are sent between and among Facebook users
,
each day, taking various forms such as instant messages, timeline posts, and visual
building an enormous, and valuable, databank about each user. These databanks are
combined, and, with the benefit of massive computing power, Facebook builds predictive
models about how Facebook users will respond to various stimuli. Facebook markets this
Facebook Faces Questions About Use of Its Data In The 2016 Presidential
Election
12. During the course of the 2016 presidential election, Facebook sold data
information and belief, that data was then used by Russian intelligence operatives to
13. When Facebook's role in gathering and supplying this secretly obtained
data became known to the public at large, Facebook faced enormous public pressure to
take greater steps to assure privacy and to take a more socially responsible approach to
managing content published on its platform and in using the data it harvests.
14. To assuage an angry public and ultimately to protect its own financial
15. Among the content that Facebook finds "objectionable" is bullying and
harassment. Facebook does not provide a definition for what bullying or harassment is.
However, it does provide a broad definition that may cover almost anything: "Bullying and
harassment happen in many places and come in may different forms, from making threats
distinguish between public and private individuals because we want to allow discussion,
which often includes critical commentary of people who are featured in the news or who
have a large public audience. For public figures, we remove attacks that are severe as
well as certain attacks where the public figure is directly tagged in the post of comment."
17. The standard is hopelessly vague. As Facebook itself notes, "[c]ontext and
intent matter, and we allow people to share and reshare posts if its clear that something
18. Facebook reserves the right to remove the "offensive" posts without
notifying the user or giving the user an opportunity to clarify or edit his post. Moreover,
Facebook reserves the right either temporarily or permanently to disable an account for
19. The process of removing user posts is totally opaque. The manner in which
postings are flagged as community standards violations is unknown, and the extent to
which computer algorithms or humans decide which content is objectionable remains
unknown.
20. Like many of his fellow citizens and students of the law, the Plaintiff,
to share his thoughts and hear the thoughts of others. He regularly posts on Facebook
about political and legal developments with the same civility that he would use in the
courtroom or the classroom, seeking to engage in debate with the community of fellow
21. The Plaintiff, Cameron L. Atkinson, is also an inquiring man who rarely
rushes to judgment, often choosing to find out for himself before condemning someone.
Facebook was censoring conservatives' posts that mentioned the name of Eric
Ciaramella, the alleged Ukranian whistleblower who has provided the impetus for the
23. Cameron L. Atkinson's first post occurred on the morning of November 11,
2019. He published a post on Facebook that read "Test post: Eric Ciaramella is a hero
for blowing the whistle on the Trump administration's treason with Ukraine." See Exhibit
1.
test post on Facebook that read "Test post 2: Eric Ciaramella is a dirty lying rat for trying
I have conflicting thoughts about the naming of Eric Ciaramella, the alleged
Ukraine whistleblower. Tattling in the dark shadows destroys public
confidence in a matter of serious public interest. On the other hand, the
vitriolic nature of our society may very well raise concerns for his safety.
However, it may also end up protecting his well-being. Regardless, I think
that people should be open to debating the merits of this serious public
question.
See Exhibit 2.
28. Again, less than 5 hours later, Facebook removed Cameron L. Atkinson's
29. As of the filing of this complaint, Cameron L. Atkinson has not received a
single communication from Facebook as to why his posts have been removed.
attempt to pander to and placate its critics. Facebook has elected to apply its vague
silencing both right-wing and left-wing speech that threatens to disrupt the carefully
31. The decision to censor Cameron L. Atkinson and the many other concerned
citizens who sought to discuss Eric Ciaramella's crucial role in the profound matters of
public concern happening in the present moment was undertaken in bad faith. Facebook
is aware or should have been aware that Mollie Hemingway, a Fox News contributor, had
32. Put into perspective, Cameron L. Atkinson could only immediately reach
664 users (his "friends" list as of this complaint) of Facebook's 2.3 billion users.
33. Cameron L. Atkinson was not bullying or harassing Eric Ciaramella, but
34. As a direct and proximate result of the acts and omissions of the
Defendants, Cameron L. Atkinson has suffered ascertainable loss in that he has been
35. Upon information and belief, Mr. Zuckerberg harbors political ambitions
beyond his role as principal of Facebook. His decision to categorically censor the speech
by ill-will, malice, and a desire to deflect attention from himself and Facebook's practice
of surreptitiously mining data for profit from consumers who believe they are receiving a
meaning of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) of 1996,47 U.S.C. Section 230, et
seq.
38. The Communications Decency Act provides immunity from civil liability for
materials published on interactive computer service sites. The provision of immunity was
intended to avoid "content-based" chilling of freedom of speech in the "new and
burgeoning Internet medium." Section 230 was enacted, in part, to preserve the robust
nature of speech on the Internet. These principles were clearly articulated in Zeran v.
America Online, Inc., 129 F.3d 327 (4th Cir. 1997), cert. denied, 524 U.S. 937 (1998).
39. Facebook enjoys immunity from suit under Section 230 of the CDA as a
Congressionally mandated means of ensuring free and robust speech on the Internet.
very goal for which Congress granted the immunity: to wit, the preservation of free speech
40. Facebook's enjoyment of immunity from civil liability for the material it
41 . The activities of this constructive public trust require that Facebook operate
and manage its content-based decisions in accord with the purposes of the trust.
42. The manner and means by which the defendants have banned the Plaintiff
from engaging in free speech on Facebook are a violation of the CDA and constitute a
willful and wanton violation of the terms of the constructive public trust.
43. The defendants use and enjoyment of the immunity conferred by the COA
while simultaneously flouting the very purposes for which Congress conferred immunity
is unconscionable and is akin to their secret harvesting of user date for sale at a profit to
third parties.
First Amendment
power and hires teams of social psychologists to study how users interact with site,
47. By increasing the amount of time users spend on the site, Facebook
acquires more data, and is better able to predict how users will behave in response to
stimuli. This data and the associated predictive models are at the core of the Facebook's
business plan and are the primary product Facebook sells to advertisers.
promoting freedom of speech on the Internet. As such, the symbiosis between Facebook
and the United States government transforms Facebook's action into state action under
the doctrine enunciated in Burton v. Wilmington Parking Authority, 365 U.S. 715 (1961).
overly broad .
Fraud
54. The Defendants hold themselves out to the world as fostering a means by
which the people of the world can communicate with one another.
55. The Defendants further represent that they will foster communication
without censorship of participants based on the content of the participants' ideas and
opinions.
participants, but secretly harvest data about each participant, including the sites
participants visit, how long participants visit each site, and other highly personal
57. The Defendants analyze and then package the data collected from
participants to third parties at enormous profit, without obtaining the informed consent of
58. The Defendants rely upon a vague "community standards" policy as a thinly
parties, and interest groups to which the Defendants intentionally or implicitly support.
59. Upon information and belief, the lobbying of political interest groups, the
pressure of politicians, and the intense public pressure of offended citizens is a sufficient
reason for the Defendants to use their "community standards" policy to censor certain
speech.
the benefits the Defendants receive from surreptitious data-mining is not outweighed by
63. The Defendants engaged in fraud to the detriment of the plaintiffs in the
following ways:
or Twitter;
user data became the target of public ire, the Defendants sought to
marketing strategy which led it to align itself with groups and interests
on which it relies.
64. The Defendants' behavior and its fickle manipulation of its "community
standards" policy amounts to little more than a bait and switch tactic to allure the Plaintiff
to establish and contribute web traffic on its platform, then mined the data that traffic
generated to sell for profit, and then censor the Plaintiff's speech when it does not fit the
66. The Defendants' act of holding themselves out to the world as fostering a
means by which the people of the world can communicate with one another freely without
censorship constitutes an unfair or deceptive act or practice under the Connecticut Unfair
68. Facebook and the Plaintiff entered into contracts about the terms and
conditions under which the Plaintiff would use Facebook's social media services.
69. The Plaintiff honored the terms and conditions of the contracts.
70. The Defendants have administered the contracts in an entirely self-serving
manner, by changing the terms and conditions of the contracts without notice to the
Damages
71. Facebook and Mr. Zuckerberg are contemptuous of public oversight of any
72. In April 2019, Facebook set aside a sum of $5 billion to use to pay an
73. The Defendants face investigations for breaches of privacy and other
necessary.
to be insufficient to deter Facebook, the plaintiffs ask the jury for a sum
B. Attorneys' fees and the cost of this action arising under 42 U.S.C.
JURY CLAIM
The Plaintiff
N
, ~3120
~-
Pattis & Smith, LLC
383 Orange Street, 15t FI.
New Haven, CT 06511
npattis@pattisandsmith.com
Tel: 203-393-3017
Fax: 203-393-9745
Exhibit 1
ell\" vlc::ll CU I lelia I:> G1 UII ly Iylll~ 1 Cll lUI II ylll~ lU lCU\.t:::
aJ Like ~ Share
ViCiOUS .....
.
Exhibit 2
CD. Live , Photo Check In