A lawyer representing Meta in an intellectual property lawsuit said he has dropped the tech giant as a client over Mark Zuckerberg’s decision to remove fact-checking on his social media platforms.
Mark Lemley, who is also a law professor at Stanford University, claimed that Meta’s boss has embraced “toxic masculinity and neo-Nazi madness”.
“I have terminated Meta as a client,” Lemley wrote on social media platform Bluesky, which has emerged as an alternative to X for left-leaning internet users following President-elect Donald Trump’s election victory.
“While I think they are on the right side in the generative AI copyright dispute, I can no longer in good conscience serve as their attorney.” Lemley’s social media post was reported by SFGATE.
Lemley pointed to a series of policy changes and public statements from Zuckerberg as catalysts for his decision.
Last week, Zuckerberg announced that he was ending Meta’s partnership with third-party fact-checkers.
Lemley also noted Meta’s decision to scale back diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, a move some believe is aimed at aligning with the incoming Trump administration.
During last week’s appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast, Zuckerberg complained that corporate culture has moved away from “masculine energy.”
Lemley mocked the remark in a post on Sunday, writing, “Oh yeah, that’s the problem with tech companies – not enough testosterone,” alongside an eye emoji.
“These decisions and comments reflect values that I cannot support,” Lemley told SFGATE.
“While I believe Meta should and will prevail on the copyright issue, they will have to do so without me.”
The post has requested a comment from Meta.
Lemley was part of a team of lawyers representing Meta in a lawsuit filed by authors — including Sarah Silverman, Richard Kadrey and Ta-Nehisi Coates — who claim the tech giant used their copyrighted works without permission to train his AI models, specifically the Llama language. model.
The lawsuit is one of many in a growing batch of copyright challenges targeting AI chatbots.
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