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by skeledrew 18 days ago
In what way is a case ruling that terms explicitly stated in a license are legally enforceable relevant to a company's terms of service which does not state in any way that users of its platform will always have access to said platform?
1 comments
EarlKing 18 days ago
Jacobsen v. Katzer established that source code, i.e. something other than money, could be used as valuable consideration for perfecting a license into a contract. The terms of service you agree to when you join Facebook, Twitter, or what have you, similarly involves an exchange of non-monetary consideration for services rendered. Both user and service provider are in a legally-binding contract. If a service provider then bans a user for no reason, or any reason, they open themselves to litigation. None of this is controversial. I really do recommend you talk to somebody who's familiar with contract law before continuing.
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skeledrew 17 days ago
> If a service provider then bans a user for no reason, or any reason, they open themselves to litigation.

And yet nothing came of it in probably the most visible case in recent history: Trump, president of the US, was banned by Facebook, Twitter in 2021. He sued, and nothing came of it, because the companies are private and it's perfectly fine for them to ban users as they see fit. He was unbanned 2 years later on the prerogative of the companies again, not because of legal proceedings.

There are essentially no cases out there where a company was forced to reverse a user ban. Unless it was regarding a breach of something explicitly in their terms or some other violation, but even those are extremely rare. Meanwhile there are numerous postings out there by people who got banned and are seeking some way to regain access, with success usually hinging on how much public support a given person can drum up for their case.

You should probably revise whatever sources you're getting your takes from, as they don't seem in line with reality.

- https://reason.org/commentary/social-media-companies-have-th... - https://www.reddit.com/r/facebook/comments/1rx4rv6/banned_fr... - https://www.reddit.com/r/facebook/comments/1moyxnm/my_facebo... - https://www.reddit.com/r/patreon/comments/1ser0cr/x_twitter_...

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