From PC Mag: The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals in Seattle has upheld a ruling that Google’s video sharing platform YouTube does not illegally censor conservative content.
As reported by Reuters, a lawsuit against Google was brought by Prager University, a conservative non-profit organization run by talk show host Dennis Prager. “PragerU” uploads a number of YouTube videos on conservative talking points, with titles including “The Market Will Set You Free,” “Is The National Anthem Racist?” and “White Leftists Act Like Racists.”
PragerU claimed that YouTube opposed its political views and therefore tagged a number of videos talking about abortion, gun rights, and Islam under its “Restricted Mode,” which Google describes as a setting that “help[s] screen out potentially mature content that you may prefer not to see.” PragerU also says YouTube blocked third parties from advertising on the videos.
The court decided that PragerU did not have a case, voting 3-0 against the organization. Circuit Judge Margaret McKeown said YouTube was a private forum and therefore was not a “state actor” under the regulations of the First Amendment despite the video platform’s near-dominance of the marketplace or its “ubiquity.”
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