Supreme Court of the United States · Official docket →
Bob Lewis v. Google LLC, et al.
Paid petition · United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, No. 20-16073 · judgment April 15, 2021
Before the decision, well below the 4.1% base rate, with no standout signals pointing toward a grant.
Questions presented
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Does this Court’s holding in Packingham v. North Carolina, 137 S. Ct. 1730, at 1736-1736, 198 L. Ed. 2d 273 (2017) that First Amendment protections apply to social media platforms override 47 U.S.C. § 230’s civil liability indemnification for censorship of constitution ally protected speech?
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Does the Petitioner, whose constitutionally pro tected speech was censored and lost revenues as a di rect result of the Respondents’ claim he violated their “hate speech” policies, lack standing to challenge the constitutionality of 47 U.S.C. § 230 when the Respond ents employ it as a liability defense?
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Does 47 U.S.C. § 230 allow private third parties the unrestricted ability to regulate protected speech in vi olation of the United States Constitution’s bar on Con gress enacting laws that indirectly regulate protected speech in an unrestricted fashion?
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Does the government’s participation and encour agement of social media censorship based on “hate speech” transform the Respondents into joint-enterprise state actors when they censor the Petitioner’s protected speech on their social media platforms in re sponse?
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Because 47 U.S.C. § 230 relies on vague language and/or does not define its terms to provide indemnifi cation from civil liability for censoring constitutionally protected speech, is it itself unconstitutional?
Counsel of record
For petitioner
Bob Lewis
For respondent
John E. Schmidtlein
William & Connolly, LLP
Case
Conference history
Distributed for 1 conference
Proceedings
- Nov 01 2021Petition DENIED.
- Oct 06 2021DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 10/29/2021.
- Sep 21 2021Waiver of right of respondent Google LLC and YouTube LLC to respond filed.
- Sep 13 2021Petition for a writ of certiorari filed. (Response due October 18, 2021)