Eugene Volokh

There’s been a good deal of talk, in President Trump’s “Preventing Online Censorship” draft Executive Order as well as elsewhere, about forbidding viewpoint discrimination by social media platforms. (Some call for that outright, while others suggest using the threat of increased liability to pressure platforms to stop such viewpoint discrimination.) I don’t think that’s consistent with […]

In an earlier post, I talked about the big picture of 47 U.S.C. § 230, the federal statute that broadly protects social media platforms (and other online speakers) from lawsuits for the defamatory, privacy-violating, or otherwise tortious speech of their users. Let’s turn now to some specific details of how § 230 is written, and […]

So reports Politico (Cristiano Lima), among other out President Donald Trump is expected to sign an executive order aimed at social media companies on Thursday, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany told reporters Wednesday evening, a move that comes as the president and his allies have escalated their allegations that companies like Twitter and Facebook […]

From today’s opinion by Judge Brian McDonald: On April 15, 2020, WASHLITE filed a first amended complaint alleging that Fox violated the Consumer Protection Act …. The complaint alleges that in February and March 2020, hosts and guests on Fox’s programs falsely described the coronavirus as a “hoax” and falsely minimized the threat of the […]

In Freedom Watch, Inc. v. Google Inc., decided today by D.C. Circuit Judges Judith Rogers, Thomas Griffith, and Raymond Randolph, Freedom Watch and Loomer sued “Google, Facebook, Twitter, and Apple … alleging that they conspired to suppress conservative political views.” No, said the court (correctly, in my view): [A.] The plaintiffs’ First Amendment claim failed […]

….Twitter is completely stifling FREE SPEECH, and I, as President, will not allow it to happen! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 26, 2020 [1.] But such labeling by Twitter isn’t stifling free speech—it’s Twitter management exercising their own free speech: They are letting him speak, but responding to the speech with their own. That’s […]