LOS ANGELES — Sexologist Dr. Susan Block has reported she has filed a motion to vacate with a California court after an arbitrator threw out her case against Meta in June.
Block filed the original complaint, seeking arbitration for “wrongful business practices,” including lack of accountability, algorithmic discrimination and deactivation of her sex advice accounts, in May. According to Block, the case didn't make it to the June 26 arbitration hearing, as the arbitrator agreed with Meta's legal team that the company was protected by Section 230.
The new motion contends that the arbitrator was biased, uninformed of the issue, and without legal authority to rule on the original complaint.
"Like countless other innocent Meta users posting about sex, politics, health and other debatable topics, I am the victim of an algorithm that identified buzz words on my profiles and incorrectly labeled me as being in violation of platform policies," Block said in a statement. "Rather than bothering to even try to be fair, Facebook and Instagram just adopted the algorithm’s conclusion as gospel. No human beings even looked at my profiles until I requested arbitration, and then it was the lawyers for Meta, who simply sought to ratify the algorithm to avoid a cascade of claims against the two platforms for relying solely on these faulty algorithms to police content from people’s profiles. Because the fact is, as many studies have shown, these powerful algorithms are notoriously faulty."
Click here to read the full motion.
