Federal Appeals Court dismisses PragerU suit against Google, rules YouTube is not a ‘public forum’

[Valin]

Legal Insurrection

“Despite YouTube’s ubiquity and its role as a publicfacing platform, it remains a private forum, not a public forum subject to judicial scrutiny under the First Amendment.

William A. Jacobson   

Friday, February 28, 2020

 

The federal district court dismissed the Complaint, as we covered in Federal Court: YouTube restrictions on PragerU videos do not violate 1st Amendment:

(Snip)

There you have it. Unless this gets reversed by the Supreme Court, which I don’t think will happen, conservatives will need to seek a remedy other than the federal courts for political bias by large tech and social media companies. Perhaps state court is an answer, but I’m not optimistic since the state Superior Court also dismissed the lawsuit (which is being appealed).

Prager U. issued this statement in response to the 9th Circuit decision:

Quote

“As we feared, the Ninth circuit got this one wrong, and the important issue of online censorship did not get a fair shake in court,” says Marissa Streit, CEO of PragerU. “Sadly, it appears as if even the Ninth Circuit is afraid of Goliath — Google. We’re not done fighting for free speech and we will keep pushing forward.”

While considering its next steps in the federal case, PragerU continues to fight for free speech via its parallel lawsuit in California State Court. A court date is expected for later this year for oral arguments in PragerU’s appeal.

“Of course this ruling is disappointing, but we won’t stop fighting and spreading public awareness of Big Tech’s censorship of conservative ideas,” says Craig Strazzeri, PragerU CMO. “YouTube continues to falsely claim that they are not politically biased, but their recent six-figure investment in the left-wing news channel The Young Turks proves otherwise.”