The WSJ.com reports today that a federal appeals court in California on Wednesday ruled that privately operated internet platforms are free to censor content they don’t like.
The unanimous decision by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco marks the most emphatic rejection of the argument, according to the outlet.
Conservatives are concerned that YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and other giant tech platforms are not bound by the First Amendment, and are censoring people with whom they disagree politically.
The case concerned a YouTube channel operated by Prager University, a nonprofit founded by talk-radio host Dennis Prager. He produces short educational videos promoting conservative ideas.
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In 2017, PragerU sued YouTube and its parent, Alphabet Inc.’s Google, after YouTube flagged dozens of its videos as “inappropriate,” stripping the clips of advertising and making them less accessible to students, library users and children.
The problem with this decision is that these companies are all run by leftists and they are monopolies.
There is little doubt from our experience that they are mercilessly censoring us.
We have the same problem with the mainstream media which is run by only six corporations, all leftists. When they report dishonest news, however, they are doing so under protections afforded by the First Amendment. Perhaps they should lose their protections, but that would apply to everyone if it happened. It would affect all the news.
The President is currently suing the NY Times for an op-ed which included fake news about Russia collusion. It’s not a bad idea. Perhaps it will make them think twice before they put their fake news safely under an op-ed category.
We doubt it, but it’s something.
OPINION
It’s actually a decent ruling on the face of it. Private companies should be allowed to censor content — they’re private and the government has no place in their business generally. But then Congress has to act, and they won’t.
We keep hearing it’s a conspiracy theory, there’s no censoring. But there is and the left is pretty much allowed to say what they want.
Privately operated internet platforms, such as YouTube, are free to censor content they don’t like, a federal appeals court in California on Wednesday ruled https://t.co/YRuZcuKBNU
— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) February 26, 2020
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