Opinion ID: 1031139
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Facts Alleged Common to All Posts

Text: In the amended complaint, Nemet recited the specific language from each customer about his or her automobile complaint for each of the twenty posts it claimed were defamatory. Then, Nemet pled as to each of the posts as follows: Upon information and belief, Defendant participated in the preparation of this complaint by soliciting the complaint, steering the complaint into a specific category designed to attract attention by consumer class action lawyers, contacting the consumer to ask questions about the complaint and to help her draft or revise her complaint, and promising the consumer that she could obtain some financial recovery by joining a class action lawsuit. Defendant is therefore responsible, in whole or in part, for developing the substance and content of the false complaint . . . about the Plaintiffs. See, e.g., J.A. at 62. Nemet argues the foregoing (the Development Paragraph) pleads facts sufficient under § 230(f)(3) to show Consumeraffairs.com is responsible, in whole or in part, for the creation or development of the posts so as to be a non-immune information content provider. 47 U.S.C. § 230(f)(3). In short, Nemet argues the language in the Development Paragraph shows Consumeraffairs.com's culpability as an information content provider either through (1) the structure and design of its website, or (2) its participation in the preparation of consumer complaints: i.e., that Consumeraffairs.com solicit[ed] its customers' complaints, steered them into specific categor[ies] designed to attract attention by consumer class action lawyers, contact[ed] customers to ask questions about their complaints and to help them draft or revise their complaints, and promis[ed] customers would obtain some financial recovery by joining a class action lawsuit. See, e.g., J.A. at 56, 62. We first examine the structure and design of the website argument, which encompasses all the facts pled in the Development Paragraph except for the claim Consumeraffairs.com asked questions and help[ed] draft or revise her complaint. J.A. at 62. Nemet cites to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals' opinion in Fair Housing Council v. Roommates.com, LLC, 521 F.3d 1157, 1174 (9th Cir.2008) to support its structure and design of the website arguments. However, we do not find Roommates.com persuasive because it is fundamentally distinguishable and the facts pled here do not show Consumeraffairs.com developed the content of the posts by the structure and design of its website. In Roommates.com, the Ninth Circuit considered whether the operator of a website created to match individuals with spare rooms with prospective renters was entitled to § 230 immunity. See 521 F.3d at 1161. The website operator, in that case, required users to disclose their sex, family status, and sexual orientation, as well as those of their desired roommate, using a list of pre-determined responses. See id. at 1164-65. Unless a prospective user furnished this information, he or she would be unable to utilize the website. Because the website operator had designed its website to develop unlawful content as a condition precedent of use, the Ninth Circuit held that the operator was an information content provider for the discriminatory postings created by third parties. See id. at 1166. As a result, the website operator was not entitled to § 230 immunity. See id. Consumeraffairs.com's website differs materially from that at issue in Roommates.com. Whereas the website in Roommates.com required users to input illegal content as a necessary condition of use, Nemet has merely alleged that Consumeraffairs.com structured its website and its business operations to develop information related to class-action law-suits. But there is nothing unlawful about developing this type of content; it is a legal undertaking: Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23, for instance, specifically provides for class-action suits. The Ninth Circuit did not hold that a website operator becomes an information content provider because the information posted on its website may be developed in a way unrelated to its initial posting, such as its potential to further a class-action lawsuit. Roommates.com merely adopted a definition of development, for purposes of § 230(f)(3), that includes materially contributing to a given piece of information's alleged unlawfulness. Id. at 1167-68; see also 47 U.S.C. § 230(f)(3). The theory of liability adopted in Roommates.com, therefore, does not aid the sufficiency of Nemet's amended complaint. As the Ninth Circuit noted, a website operator who does not encourage illegal content or design its website to require users to input illegal content is immune under § 230 of the CDA. Roommates.com, 521 F.3d at 1175. Even accepting as true all of the facts Nemet pled as to Consumeraffairs.com's liability for the structure and design of its website, the amended complaint does not show, or even intimate, that Consumeraffairs.com contributed to the allegedly fraudulent nature of the comments at issue. Iqbal, 129 S.Ct. at 1952. Thus, as to these claimed facts in the Development Paragraph, Nemet's pleading not only fails to show it is plausible that Consumeraffairs.com is an information content provider, but not that it is even a likely possibility. We now turn to the remaining factual allegations, common to all twenty posts from the Development Paragraph, that Consumeraffairs.com is an information content provider because it contacted the consumer to ask questions about the complaint and to help her draft or revise her complaint. See, e.g., J.A. at 62. Nemet fails to make any cognizable argument as to how a website operator who contacts a potential user with questions thus develops or creates the website content. Assuming it to be true that Consumeraffairs.com contacted the consumers to ask some unknown question, this bare allegation proves nothing as to Nemet's claim Consumeraffairs.com is an information content provider. The remaining claim, of revising or redrafting the consumer complaint, fares no better. Nemet has not pled what Consumeraffairs.com ostensibly revised or redrafted or how such affected the post. Threadbare recitals of the elements of a cause of action, supported by mere conclusory statements, do not suffice. Iqbal, 129 S.Ct. at 1949. Nemet's claim of revising or redrafting is both threadbare and conclusory. Moreover, in view of our decision in Zeran, Nemet was required to plead facts to show any alleged drafting or revision by Consumeraffairs.com was something more than a website operator performs as part of its traditional editorial function. See 129 F.3d at 330. It has failed to plead any such facts. Congress enacted § 230's broad immunity `to remove disincentives for the development and utilization of blocking and filtering technologies that empower parents to restrict their children's access to objectionable or inappropriate online material.' 47 U.S.C. § 230(b)(4). In line with this purpose, § 230 forbids the imposition of publisher liability on a service provider for the exercise of its editorial and self-regulatory functions. Id. at 331. We thus conclude that the Development Paragraph failed, as a matter of law, to state facts upon which it could be concluded that it was plausible that Consumeraffairs.com was an information content provider. Accordingly as to the Development Paragraph, the district court did not err in granting the Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss because Nemet failed to plead facts sufficient to show Consumeraffairs.com was an information content provider and not covered by CDA immunity.