Justice Saliann Scarpulla
Website owner and operator Yelp Inc. moved to dismiss Braverman's defamation suit. Braverman claimed Yelp published defamatory reviews of his dental practice written by Yelp users. Yelp moved to dismiss, arguing it was immune from liability under the federal Communications Decency Act §230 thus could not be liable as the publisher or speaker of the defamatory reviews. Braverman argued Yelp was not immune under §230 as it acted as the "author" of the allegedly defamatory content. Yelp claimed its alleged acts of filtering out positive reviews and adding the Best of Yelp list of other dentists in Braverman's area were editorial acts immune under §230. The court noted a provider of interactive computer services was only entitled to immunity under §230 where the disputed content was provided by another information content provider. It concluded Yelp was immune to the defamation action under §230 as the action was based on reviews written by other content providers, not on any content Yelp itself created. Yelp's act of filtering out positive reviews did not make it the creator of the allegedly defamatory reviews, but was an exercise of a publisher's traditional editorial function protected by the CDA. Hence, Yelp's motion to dismiss was granted.
