Social Media and the First Amendment

From The American Thinker:

The Left fears Dennis Prager's five-minute PragerU videos, which use experts, facts, and good writing to counter the overwhelmingly leftist spin in today's education, news, and entertainment. Google, which owns YouTube, has therefore tried to censor PragerU videos by demonetizing them and by marking many as restricted, a label associated with violent or offensive content. Among the videos getting this designation are those discussing the virtues of the Ten Commandments. "Restricted" videos are hidden in general searches and are blocked in schools. 

Dennis Prager sued Google for violating the First Amendment, relying on a theory that the platform is so all-encompassing that it has become the equivalent of a public utility. Because Google is based in California, the suit ended up in the Ninth Circuit. PragerU lost in the district court and, on Wednesday, the Ninth Circuit affirmed that ruling. 

Writing for a three-judge panel, Judge M. Margaret McKeown held that "[d]espite 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." Irritating as it is to agree with the Ninth Circuit, Judge McKeown is probably correct. The tech giants are not public utilities. They are private platforms, and people can choose to drop out or switch. Competing companies can arise and challenge the sites' dominance. (Read more.)