PragerU has had numerous videos striped of advertising and lowered in search results by YouTube, so they sued the platform and their parent company, Alphabet, Inc. An appeals court has made a decision in the matter.
The Hill reports:
A federal appeals court on Wednesday ruled that internet giants like Google and Facebook can censor content on their platforms, rebuking arguments from conservatives who claim the tech companies violate users’ First Amendment rights by removing certain messages or videos.
With its unanimous opinion, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals became the latest court to dismiss arguments that platforms like YouTube can be sued under the First Amendment for decisions on content moderation.
The article goes on the report:
“Despite YouTube’s ubiquity and its role as a public-facing platform, it remains a private forum, not a public forum subject to judicial scrutiny under the First Amendment,” Circuit Judge M. Margaret McKeown wrote in the opinion.
The three-judge panel upheld a lower court’s decision to dismiss the case.
Dennis Prager, founder of the conservative advocacy organization Prager University, first sued Google in 2017 over claims that its subsidiary YouTube was prioritizing left-leaning content over Prager U’s popular conservative videos.
