Prof asks court to protect Unfollow Everything 2.0 extension from Facebook's ire

theregister.com

14 points·Bluestein··7 comments

So the extension is not even released? And Facebook didn’t actually say its illegal? They are preemptively trying to get a court to affirm its legality? Why? Is there a record of Facebook suing similar extensions?

I'll allow a little "didn't read TFA to the end" on such a wordy article that buries the lede, but yes, waaaay down the page is mention of Meta suing the original "Unfollow Everything" author (who is different than software dev in TFA) and banning them for life. Hence the professor's preemptive strike.

OTOH, El Reg could've done better by stating upfront the answer to the (and your) obvious question.

Totally agree. Information could be better placed. I guess the assumption was that either the professor himself or somebody else was sued or had legal trouble in the past ...

"""A professor has asked the US courts to confirm he has the right to release a browser extension to help people disengage with Facebook by automatically changing certain settings.

In a complaint filed on Wednesday in a Northern California federal court, the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University asked the court on behalf of Ethan Zuckerman, associate professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, to affirm the legality of Unfollow Everything 2.0, a browser extension that makes it easier to stop following friends, groups, and pages on Facebook.

"I’m suing Facebook to make it better," said Zuckerman in a statement."""

(Basically, Zuckerman vs. Zuckerberg, come to think of it ...)

We need some Barry Zuckerkorn

Indeed we do ...

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