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by rationalist 1217 days ago
Wouldn't FB/Meta be required to actually send someone to court to tell the judge that the user "agreed" to binding arbitration first?
2 comments

They would likely immediately file to dismiss based on the TOS. It would be an uphill battle to convince a judge that you shouldn’t go through arbitration first.
How would someone convince the court that you never agreed to the TOS?

For example, I created my account before there was a TOS, and FB used easily-bypassable ways to get users to agree to a TOS, and eventually they stopped asking me, leading me to believe they think I agreed. Without my wet signature on anything, how can they prove I agreed to something when they can just flip a bit and claim their records show I did?

I guess the user would get a notice that FB/Meta filed something and that they could respond saying that's not true?

> How would someone convince the court that you never agreed to the TOS?

If you live in the US, it turns out that EULA (which TOS are a subset of) are completely valid: https://www.canlii.org/en/commentary/doc/2006CanLIIDocs118#!...

The argument that you provably never read the EULA is apparently no form of legal defense, which I personally feel shits upon the letter and the spirit of the law, but that's an unfortunate consequence of living in a society where business is the pinnacle of everything.

Now I live in Europe and that sort of shit absolutely doesn't fly here - EULAs are not enforceable.

> they could respond saying that’s not true?

Right. Keep in mind this is civil court so the standards of “proof” aren’t the same as criminal court. The judge only has to believe you more than them. It will be an uphill battle though because the judge probably doesn’t want to hear the case. They’re going to want you to try arbitration first.

Wouldn't something like this work?

"I've repeatedly tried to organise arbitration, however Facebook is refusing to do so."