YouTube Wins Big in Censorship Case, but New Restrictions for Platforms Might Be Coming

YouTube's victory against PragerU affirms that the First Amendment doesn't apply to private companies

YouTube and other tech giants will be allowed to continue censoring speech on their platforms, after a ruling by San Francisco’s Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. 

Experts were not surprised, calling the decision “unexceptional” and “unremarkable” because the First Amendment only applies to government censorship.

The appeals court’s ruling, handed down Wednesday, concerns a 2017 case in which Prager University, a nonprofit organization that produces and disseminates conservative videos, sued YouTube and parent company Google for flagging some of its videos as inappropriate, restricting them from being seen by children, students and library-goers as well as demonetizing the videos so ads couldn’t be run against them.

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