Likening his client’s claim to that of an athlete with a monetizable image, an attorney representing a TV reporter who is suing social media websites over misuse of her likeness argued to a federal appeals court Wednesday that the case should fit a narrow exception to a law that bars suits against online content providers.

Fox 29 reporter Karen Hepp sued Facebook, Imgur, Reddit and holding company WGCZ for allowing a photograph of her—surreptitiously taken while shopping at a convenience store—to be used on a dating website and in erectile dysfunction advertisements without her consent. Previously, U.S. District Judge John Milton Younge of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania had dismissed the social media giants.