Our Facebook, Twitter, YouTube Lawsuit Appeal Filed Challenging CENSORSHIP

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[the_ad id=”87125″]Our lawsuit challenging the violations of our First Amendment freedoms by social media giants Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube moves forward.

Appeal Filed Challenging Federal Statute Authorizing Censorship by Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube

AFLC_SocialMedia_Censorship_Banner_07-11-16 (3)--FinalToday, the American Freedom Law Center (AFLC) filed its opening brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in a federal lawsuit challenging Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) under the First Amendment.  Section 230 provides immunity from lawsuits to Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, thereby permitting these social media giants to engage in government-sanctioned censorship and discriminatory business practices free from legal challenge.

The lawsuit was brought on behalf of the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer, and Jihad Watch.  Geller and Spencer, along with the organizations they run, are often subject to censorship and discrimination by Facebook, Twitter and YouTube because of Geller’s and Spencer’s beliefs and views, which Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube consider expression that is offensive to Muslims.  Such discrimination, which is largely religion-based in that these California businesses are favoring adherents of Islam over those who are not, is prohibited in many states, but particularly in California by the state’s anti-discrimination law, which is broadly construed to prohibit all forms of discrimination.

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Section 230 immunizes Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube from civil liability for any action taken to “restrict access to or availability of material that” that they consider “to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected.”  Consequently, these social media giants can discriminate with impunity.

The district court dismissed the complaint, claiming that Geller, Spencer, and their organizations lack standing to pursue their First Amendment challenge.  The district court did not address the serious First Amendment concerns raised by the lawsuit.  As such, the court did not rule on the merits.

In its decision on standing, the district court noted that the challengers “allege two forms of injury: an ‘inability to express certain views’ because of discriminatory censorship by private social-media companies and an ‘economic injury’ that flows from the companies’ removal of Plaintiffs’ online content.”  The court, therefore, “assume[d]” that “Plaintiffs have . . . plausibly alleged an injury in fact.”  However, it ultimately concluded that because this is an immunity statute, the Attorney General has no “enforcement” authority.  Therefore, the plaintiffs could not show that their injury is “fairly traceable” to the Attorney General or that it could be redressed by the court.  Consequently, the court refused to exercise its jurisdiction to decide the case.

Robert Muise, AFLC co-founder and senior counsel, issued the following statement:

“The district court is mistaken.  There is no dispute that section 230 confers broad powers of censorship upon Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube officials, who can silence constitutionally protected speech and engage in discriminatory business practices with impunity by virtue of this power conferred by the federal government.”

Muise continued,

“As a result, section 230 is a federal statute that alters the legal relations between our clients and Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, resulting in the withdrawal of legal protection against discrimination by private actors.  Per Supreme Court precedent, such laws violate the Constitution.  In Romer v. Evans, for example, the Supreme Court struck down on constitutional grounds a law that withdrew specific legal protection from the injuries caused by discrimination against homosexuals, including discrimination caused by private parties.  There is no basis for a federal court to refuse to decide our First Amendment challenge to this federal law.”

David Yerushalmi, AFLC co-founder and senior counsel, added:

“Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube have notoriously censored speech that they deem critical of Islam, thereby effectively enforcing blasphemy laws here in the United States with the assistance of the federal government.  We are hopeful that the D.C. Circuit will reverse the lower court’s decision, which essentially stands for the proposition that there are certain statutes that are ‘above the law’ and thus beyond constitutional challenge.  That is a dangerous precedent.”

Yerushalmi added:

“It has been the top agenda item of Islamic supremacists to impose such standards on the West.  Its leading proponents are the Muslim Brotherhood’s network of Islamist activist groups in the West and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), which co-sponsored, with support from Obama and then-Secretary of State Clinton, a U.N. resolution which called on all nations to ban speech that could promote mere hostility to Islam.  Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are falling in line, and we will continue our fight to stop this assault on our First Amendment freedoms.”

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AlgorithmicAnalystD
AlgorithmicAnalyst
7 years ago

Great work Pamela!!!

RCCA
RCCA
7 years ago

Maybe you could circulate a petition by “members” of your organization AFDI complaining that they are being deprived of your articles because of censorship by Facebook, etc. Maybe that way your organization would have standing? I’m not a lawyer, so just a 2 cent suggestion.

tatka150
tatka150
7 years ago
Reply to  RCCA

I will be happy to sigh.

Sunshine Kid
Sunshine Kid
7 years ago
Reply to  tatka150

Put the fingers on the right keys. I get your meaning, but one letter changes the whole word. By the way, I’ll be happy to sign (and sigh) said petition.

Victor Trump
Victor Trump
7 years ago

Thank you Pam! @IDTheftReports Twitter and YouTube accounts have felt the full force of the exact circumstances you describe. Twitter has deleted 80% of our followers since November 8. We will also help spread the good news of your legal action. Thanks again.

Mahou Shoujo
Mahou Shoujo
7 years ago

Keep at it until face book does a face plant in the manure pile of islam that it grovels too. Then step on its neck.

JCL154
JCL154
7 years ago

Thank you for fighting for our First Amendment Rights!

william couch
william couch
7 years ago

I’m blocked right now from fabook(misspelled to show disrespect) for 1 month..

tatka150
tatka150
7 years ago
Reply to  william couch

I had the same a few month ago

william couch
william couch
7 years ago
Reply to  tatka150

That’s the trash that needs to be !shut down!.

Bandit
Bandit
7 years ago
Reply to  william couch

You are only blocked for a month wow, back after Bamba boy was put in office for the first time I was blocked for 2 years, for posting a pic of a COAST GUARD SHIP blowing a drug smuggler out of the water. It is apparent that there are those that would rather have the role coming in than do something about it.

william couch
william couch
7 years ago
Reply to  Bandit

I remember hearing something about that. Not the block, but the ship.. WOW, it’s been that long..

Bandit
Bandit
7 years ago
Reply to  william couch

Yep I was blocked for more than 2 years, I can get back on now but I have to watch what I post, I am not the only one that things like this happened too, there were well over 2,000 or more that were blocked for a long period of time.

william couch
william couch
7 years ago
Reply to  Bandit

I thought I was posting on discus.. But markie the thought/speech police caught me off guard..

Bandit
Bandit
7 years ago
Reply to  william couch

Yeah that’s happened to a few people that I know as well

Diana Prince
Diana Prince
7 years ago

Thank you, Pam, Robert, & the AFDI for everything you do. People truly do not understand how important the work is that you are doing, & how essential it is to their freedom.

tatka150
tatka150
7 years ago

Thank you Pamela and Robert Spencer. I admire you and proud of you. You are the real voice of free America. God Bless you both

Tonya Parnell
Tonya Parnell
7 years ago

GET THEIR DEM O RAT ASSES

AR154U☑ᵀʳᵘᵐᵖ DEPLORABLE 2020
AR154U☑ᵀʳᵘᵐᵖ DEPLORABLE 2020
7 years ago

comment image

Ichabod Crain
Ichabod Crain
7 years ago

Good luck with the appeal, but that won’t go anywhere, anytime soon. Why? Because it is self defeating in the long run.

As it is now, websites that provide a vehicle for social commentary remain free of the responsibility for those comments. For example, if someone makes a comment on this site defaming another person or organization, like just for example, CAIR, that organization cannot sue Pamela for slander. Pamela can take the stand, and does take the stand, that she is not responsible for the comments on this site.

As it stands, Google can give you what it feels are the best search results, irrespective of what they are. Again for example, CAIR cannot sue Google because their research results will return material disparaging of CAIR.

That immunity from prosecution is even broader than that. As it stands, you can use Google to find pirated videos and music. However much the MPAA would have Google “censor” their search results so as not to return you links to pirated videos, they cannot. Google has fought a long and prolonged battle against the MPAA to maintain their immunity.

Now this lawsuit threatens that hard fought immunity. If you win, you defeat yourselves. You can’t have it both ways. If you can force Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube to moderate their content in any way, that same law can and will be turned against you. Next you will have CAIR suing you for defamation and you will no longer be able to operate this website.

This website is a business. Just like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, it is in the business of social media and engages in censorship and discriminatory business practices free from legal challenge. This website only present one side, a negative view of Islam and all things Left and “progressive”. If you win, then people will be able to sue this website to have equal representation of their pro-Islamic and pro-Leftist point of view.

Now of course I am on the side of Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer when it comes to revealing the moral bankruptcy of Islam and the Left in general – even if it may not seem like that at first glance reading what I have written above. I am also very, very concerned about things like seeing Mark Zuckerberg talking to Angela Merkel and promising to aid her cause.

However, I have not seen any repression of “Islamophobia”. To the contrary, I have seen an explosion of sources growing exponentially, and in this I am very encouraged. I have read complaints of specific instances both here and at JihadWatch, but these are only anecdotal evidence that there may have been some specific incidences. As far as I know, there have been no scientific studies concluding bias against Islamo-criticism in general.

pogee
pogee
7 years ago
Reply to  Ichabod Crain

While I respect your knowledge and opinion, and thank you for your input, I must observe that you are wrong with respect to the facts and the Constitutional protections of the First Amendment. To wit, as Muise notes, “…section 230 is a federal statute that alters the legal relations between our clients and Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, resulting in the withdrawal of legal protection against discrimination by private actors. Per Supreme Court precedent, such laws violate the Constitution. In Romer v. Evans, for example, the Supreme Court struck down on constitutional grounds a law that withdrew specific legal protection from the injuries caused by discrimination against homosexuals, including discrimination caused by private parties. There is no basis for a federal court to refuse to decide our First Amendment challenge to this federal law.”

* Lower courts, especially those in the more progressive areas of our country, routinely abandon constitutional protections because they believe in a broadly expansive “living” Constitution. That is a false reading of anything and everything ever written by Madison, Hamilton, and Jay in The Federalist Papers, as well as any debates held during the Constitutional Congress leading up to the Constitution. Again, as Muise correctly observes, “There is no basis for a federal court to refuse to decide our First Amendment challenge to this federal law.”

aemoreira1981
aemoreira1981
7 years ago
Reply to  pogee

Without Section 230 of the CDA, social media would not exist. One cannot possibly police every ongoing on social media. If the court rules in favor of Pamela Geller, there will be immediately a split with the First Circuit.

pogee
pogee
7 years ago
Reply to  aemoreira1981

We’re not talking of the government policing every ongoing social media; rather, we’re talking of each medium, separately, policing their own sites. If NSA can tap every single phone in this country, turn them on and off remotely, turn their microphones on and off remotely, record and store every single call of every American every day—not to mention all emails—it shouldn’t be too hard for, say, $500 Billion Facebook to monitor its site(s) through sophisticated algorithms. Although First Amendment rights need to be vigorously protected on all platforms, multiple US Supreme Court decisions have rejecting hate speech, incitement, terrorist-based communications, and the like from First Amendment protection. It’s time such an action as this is not only undertaken but supported by the courts under the Rule of Law.

aemoreira1981
aemoreira1981
7 years ago
Reply to  pogee

The number of employees at the NSA is not publicly revealed, but it’s estimated to be in the high five figures. It’s not cheap.

pogee
pogee
7 years ago
Reply to  aemoreira1981

Am I missing something? What does this have to do with social media policing themselves? We’re not talking about government intervention here; rather, we’re talking about social media being responsible for promptly taking down hate speech, incitement, and the like, none of which is protected.

aemoreira1981
aemoreira1981
7 years ago
Reply to  pogee

The idea is that policing social media to the extent where it’s all eliminated is prohibitively expensive.

pogee
pogee
7 years ago
Reply to  aemoreira1981

Actually, it’s not prohibitively expensive at all. Facebook and other social media sites already have algoriths for all manner of things, whether it’s gathering information to sell to others, for which they get paid handsomely, or filtering out information. Although a new one would have some costs attached, it would simply be a cost of doing business, like labor, rent or mortgage, insurance, lighting, etc.

pogee
pogee
7 years ago

We love you, Pamela, Muise, Yerushalmi, Spenser, and everyone else who fights for freedom of speech and to awaken the public to the inherent threat of Islam to America and the rest of the world.

Diane Sori
Diane Sori
7 years ago

I stand strong with Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer. I know well Facebook censorship as I’ve been in their ‘infamous’ FB jail more times than I care to count. The truth is something to be squelched by these sorts at all costs, yet NO matter how hard they try the truth does manage to get out via people like Pamela, Robert, and others…and the left hates it.

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