Tech giants free to censor content under US Constitution: ruling

Tech giants including Google are free to censor content as they wish, a US court has ruled, in a landmark freedom-of-speech case concerning private internet platforms.

The decision on Wednesday by San Francisco's Ninth Circuit appeals court rejected a conservative news outlet's claims that YouTube had breached the First Amendment by censoring its content.

The US Constitution's First Amendment prohibits the government, but not private parties, from censoring free speech.

Despite its two billion monthly users, Google-owned YouTube "remains a private forum, not a public forum subject to judicial scrutiny under the First Amendment," the court found.

Conservative non-profit PragerU had argued that Google unlawfully limited access to its videos discussing topics such as "male-female differences," "environmental issues" and "other topics discussed on university campuses."
"We go to extraordinary lengths to build our products and enforce our policies in such a way that political leanings are not taken into account." He added: "PragerU's allegations were meritless, both factually and legally, and the court's ruling vindicates important legal principles that allow us to provide different choices and settings to users."