Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s “latest bid to dictate the content moderation policies of a private entity" seeks the "remarkable relief" of preliminarily enjoining Google from exercising its discretion to remove videos conveying "dangerous COVID-19 and vaccine misinformation” on its YouTube platform, said Google’s opposition Monday (docket 3:23-cv-03880) in U.S. District Court for Northern California in San Francisco to Kennedy’s Sept. 25 motion for an injunction.
Section 230
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fails to state a plausible claim that Google, “a private company,” engaged in any state action, and his free speech claim under the California constitution is barred by Section 230, said Google’s Tuesday motion to dismiss with prejudice (docket 3:23-cv-03880) Kennedy’s first amended complaint in U.S. District Court for Northern California in San Francisco.
Alex Kozinski, a lawyer for former President Donald Trump and several of his co-defendants, faced tough questioning in oral argument Wednesday from 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Jay Bybee about the breadth of evidence on which they’re basing their challenge of the district court’s dismissal of their complaint against Twitter on First Amendment grounds.
The U.S. Supreme Court granted the cert petitions of NetChoice and the Computer & Communications Industry Association challenging on First Amendment grounds the constitutionality of the Florida (docket 22-227) and Texas (docket 22-555) social media laws, said the court’s order list Friday.
The U.S. Supreme Court granted the cert petitions of NetChoice and the Computer & Communications Industry Association challenging the constitutionality of the Florida (docket 22-227) and Texas (docket 22-555) social media laws on First Amendment grounds, said the court’s order list Friday. NetChoice and CCIA argue that the Florida and Texas statutes are unconstitutional under the First Amendment, plus they violate the commerce clause, the equal protection and due process clauses of the 14th Amendment, and are preempted by Section 230.
Plaintiff Republican National Committee and defendant Google seek deadline extensions to Oct. 10 for the RNC’s amended complaint and Nov. 16 for Google’s response, after U.S. District Judge Daniel Calabretta for Eastern California in Sacramento granted Google’s motion to dismiss the RNC’s allegations that Google intentionally misdirected the RNC’s fundraising emails to Gmail users’ spam folders (see 2308250030), said the parties’ joint stipulation Thursday (docket 2:22-cv-01904). The judge granted the RNC partial leave Aug. 23 to amend within 30 days to establish that Google didn't act in good faith and to show that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act doesn’t apply to this action. Good cause exists for the requested extensions, said the stipulation. The case “involves numerous complex issues of state and federal law,” and the court’s decision requires the RNC to add “certain factual information,” it said. For similar reasons, additional time for Google to respond to the amended complaint is warranted, it said.
Though litigants “exaggerate,” it may “actually be true that the fate of the freedom of speech in America depends” on what the U.S. Supreme Court does with the preliminary injunction barring federal officials from coercing social media platforms to moderate their content, said the Children’s Health Defense and its founder, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. They filed an amicus brief Wednesday (docket 23A243) in opposition to the government’s application for a full stay of the injunction pending the disposition of its appeal (see 2309140041).
Monday's decision of U.S. District Judge Beth Labson Freeman for Northern California granting NetChoice’s motion for a preliminary injunction to block California Attorney General Rob Bonta (D) from enforcing the state’s Age Appropriate Design Code (AB-2273) (see 2309180063) “lets Big Tech off the hook, and gives them a free pass to continue profiting off harm to our kids,” emailed California Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland), co-sponsor of AB-2273, through a spokesperson Tuesday.
U.S. District Judge Beth Labson Freeman for Northern California in San Jose granted NetChoice’s motion for a preliminary injunction blocking California Attorney General Rob Bonta (D) from enforcing the state’s Age Appropriate Design Code (AB-2273), finding that California hasn't shown that the challenged statute "passes constitutional muster," said her signed order Monday (docket 5:22-cv-08861).
Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. refreshed his free speech complaint against YouTube and Google to wrap in the 5th U.S. Circuit Appeals Court’s Sept. 8 comments in the pending Missouri v. Biden First Amendment case, said his Tuesday amended complaint (docket 3:23-cv-03880) in U.S. District Court for Northern California in San Francisco.