Fields Han Cunniff serves as co-counsel in a case challenging whether federal law shields Meta from claims that its algorithms amplified incitement to violence targeting Rohingya communities.
October 28, 2026
Two Rohingya women fled Burma after their villages were attacked. Their lawsuit alleges that Meta’s recommendation systems helped spread the incitement that put their communities in danger.
The case raises a straightforward question: When a social media company’s own systems promote dangerous content, can the company be held responsible for what those systems do?
So far, the courts have not reached the merits of the women’s claims. Instead, the case has turned on Section 230, a federal law that courts have interpreted to broadly protect internet platforms from liability for content posted by others.
Now, the plaintiffs are seeking an opportunity to take that question to the Supreme Court. Fields Han Cunniff PLLC serves as co-counsel with lead counsel Edelson PC, which is preparing a petition with the Stanford Supreme Court Litigation Clinic.
More than a place to post
The lawsuit, filed in December 2021, alleges that Meta did more than host anti-Rohingya messages on Facebook. Its algorithms allegedly recommended and promoted incitement, delivering it to people most likely to act on it. According to the complaint, Meta continued that conduct even after journalists, researchers, and humanitarian organizations warned the company about the danger.
Those concerns were not confined to the lawsuit. The chair of the United Nations fact-finding mission on Burma said Facebook played a determining role in the violence. Amnesty International also concluded that Meta’s practices helped fuel it.
The distinction at the heart of the case is important: The plaintiffs are not simply seeking to hold Meta responsible for what other people wrote. They are challenging what Meta’s own systems allegedly did to spread it.
The judges applied the precedent. They also questioned it.
On April 28, 2026, a three-judge Ninth Circuit panel unanimously affirmed dismissal of the case. Under the circuit’s existing precedent, Section 230 protects platforms not only when they host third-party content, but also when they recommend it.
Yet every judge on the panel wrote or joined a separate opinion questioning that interpretation.
Judge Nelson, who wrote the panel’s decision, explained separately that the Ninth Circuit had read Section 230 too broadly. Judge Berzon, joined by Judge Fletcher, said she would distinguish traditional publishing from activities that recommend content or connect users. She urged the court to reconsider its approach.
Why dismiss a case under a rule the judges themselves questioned? Because a three-judge panel cannot overrule the circuit’s earlier decisions. That requires the full court sitting “en banc,” or the Supreme Court.
The plaintiffs asked the Ninth Circuit to reconsider. On August 17, 2026, it declined. Judges Berzon and Fletcher recommended rehearing, but no judge requested a vote of the full court.
A different answer in a different court
The Ninth Circuit’s approach is not the only one.
In Anderson v. TikTok (2024), the Third Circuit treated a platform’s recommendations as the platform’s own expressive activity. It drew on the Supreme Court’s decision in Moody v. NetChoice, which addressed platforms’ choices about selecting, ordering, and displaying content.
That reasoning matters here. Hosting someone else’s message and choosing to recommend it are not necessarily the same act. Whether Section 230 protects both can determine whether a lawsuit moves forward or ends before the underlying claims are heard.
The courts also disagree about how far the statute’s protection for a “publisher” should reach. Historically, the law distinguished publishers from distributors, such as bookstores and newsstands, whose liability depended on what they knew or had reason to know. Critics of broad Section 230 immunity have questioned whether courts have read that distinction out of the statute.
What comes next
The plaintiffs’ next step is to ask the Supreme Court to hear the case through a petition for a writ of certiorari. That petition is being prepared with the Stanford Supreme Court Litigation Clinic. The Court has not yet agreed to review the case.
A ruling allowing the lawsuit to proceed would not establish that Meta is liable. The plaintiffs would still have to prove their claims. But it would give them something they have sought since filing the case: an opportunity to have those claims heard on the merits.
Fields Han Cunniff continues to work alongside Edelson in seeking that opportunity.