PragerU's Lawsuit Against Google Seeks To Rewrite the First Amendment

[OfTheCross]

YouTube, a Google subsidiary, has restricted approximately 20 percent of the nonprofit's videos, meaning that those clips cannot be viewed by the 1.5 percent of users who opt not to see adult material. The tagged videos include "Are 1 in 5 Women Raped at College?" and "Why Isn't Communism as Hated as Nazism?"

PragerU's suit says that YouTube is essentially a "public forum" that should be subject to government intervention. In court, Peter Obstler, head counsel for PragerU, said that YouTube is "not just the company town. They're arguably a company country and maybe a company world force.

...

Attorneys for Google countered that a win for PragerU would have deleterious effects on the internet. For one, companies would lose their right to remove pornography and abusive content, which Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act expressly allows them to scrub as they see fit. But they see a more frightening consequence as well: platforms such as their own would have the incentive to abandon current claims of political neutrality to avoid similar lawsuits, and would thus be likely to censor more content—not less.

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I don't think Prager is going to win this case but they're pretty ballsy/crazy to try

[Free Vulcan]

Social media is a tough test of the 1st amendment. While they are private entities, they are conduits of information on and are now a huge influence over public elections.

So what do you do when they censor? The only way I can see to successfully get judicial remedy is nail them for double standards on enforcing their terms of agreement.

Beyond that is new territory.

[verga]

"current claims of political neutrality" That is an illusion.

[OfTheCross]

"current claims of political neutrality" That is an illusion.

What do you mean?