The January 16, 2019 and April 8, 2020 Trending Law Blog posts discussed cases in which the central issue was whether private entities (i.e., the operator of a public access television station and YouTube, respectively) could be deemed “state actors” — persons acting on behalf of a governmental body – for purposes of the First Amendment. In both cases, the courts held that the First Amendment does not prohibit the private abridgement of speech. On May 27, 2020, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit reached a similar decision in Freedom Watch, Inc., et al. v. Google Inc., et al.
In Freedom Watch, the plaintiffs, a conservative political interest group and political activist, alleged, among other things, that Google, Facebook, Twitter, and Apple “conspired to suppress conservative political views and violated the First Amendment.” The court of appeals rejected this claim, finding the plaintiffs did not adequately allege that the defendants could violate the First Amendment. The court stated:
In general, the First Amendment “prohibits only governmental abridgement of speech.” Manhattan Cmty. Access Corp. v. Halleck,139 S.Ct. 1921, 1928 (2019). Freedom Watch contends that, because the [Defendants] provide an important forum for speech, they are engaged in state action. But, under Halleck, “a private entity who provides a forum for speech is not transformed by that fact alone into a state actor.” Id. at 1930. Freedom Watch fails to point to additional facts indicating that these [Defendants] are engaged in state action and thus fails to state a viable First Amendment claim.
Although the court of appeals did not elaborate on what additional facts could have been alleged to establish that a private entity can be deemed a state actor for purposes of the First Amendment, the court did implicitly suggest that such facts could be alleged.
It remains to be seen when a court might hold that private entities can be sued for First Amendment violations, but, for now at least, that day has not yet arrived.
* * * * * * *
For any question relating to this article, please contact Robert B. Nussbaum, Esq. at Saiber LLC.
Rob Nussbaum has lectured numerous times on legal issues and social media and how social media and other electronic evidence may be admitted into evidence at trial. He concentrates his practice in general commercial litigation and appears regularly in New Jersey federal and state courts.
For any questions relating to whether your website or social media presence can be used against you as a basis for personal jurisdiction, please contact Robert B. Nussbaum, Esq. at Saiber LLC.
The January 16, 2019 post – 
Companies that interact with consumers from other jurisdictions typically include forum selection clauses in their agreement/terms of use. In the event of a dispute with a consumer, these clauses allow the company to choose a forum that is most convenient in order to obtain a “home field advantage.” For example, a company may find it advantageous to appear before a local court as its counsel may be more familiar with the local rules and judges in that particular venue.
“Web scraping” involves the use of software to collect data from the internet, which can then be sold to other users. On September 9, 2019, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued a decision in hiQ Labs, Inc. v. LinkedIn Corp., No. 17-16783, holding that LinkedIn could not deny a web scraping company access to publicly available LinkedIn member profiles.
On June 7, 2019, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit held that §230 of the Communications Decency Act (“CDA”), 47 U.S.C. §230 (c)(1) provided immunity from suit to Google, Microsoft and Yahoo! when they are sued for re-publishing content on their websites which is provided by a third-party. Marshall’s Locksmith Service Inc. v. Google, LLC, 2019 U.S. App. LEXIS 17123, No. 18-7018 (D.C. Cir. June 7, 2019). Less than two weeks later, U.S. Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) introduced legislation – the “Ending Support for Internet Censorship Act” – to remove the §230 immunity that protects companies such as Facebook, Twitter, Google, and the like unless such companies prove to the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) that their content moderation is politically neutral.
The June 14, 2018 post “
On March 26, 2019, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit heard oral argument in Knight First Amendment Inst. at Columbia University v. Trump, No. 18-1691 (2d Cir.), a case which will decide whether President Donald Trump can block people from seeing what he posts on Twitter. (See