For years, Facebook has been at odds with security and privacy researchers over the amount of access the company gives to its data. Now, one of those researchers has took matters into his own hands by suing Facebook, claiming that the social media giant is required by law to give users more control over their own feeds.

Facebook and other social media companies are famously protected by an old law called Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act that prevents companies from being held liable for content on their platforms. However, Columbia University researcher Ethan Zuckerman claims that another subsection of this law actually gives users the right to control how they use the Internet. In other words, Facebook may have to give people more tools to control the content they see.

“[The law] is quite explicit about libraries, parents, and others having the ability to control obscene or other unwanted content on the internet,” Zuckerman said. “I actually think that anticipates having control over a social network like Facebook, having this ability to sort of say, ‘We want to be able to opt out of the algorithm.’”

While Zuckerman is filing this lawsuit to help security researchers such as himself, it could also be a huge net positive for everyday Facebook users if the suit results in stronger privacy controls.

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