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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


Certiorari denied · November 1, 2021
Pre-decision estimate: 0% cert probability

Before the decision, well below the 4.1% base rate, with no standout signals pointing toward a grant.

Questions presented

  1. 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?

  2. 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?

  3. 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?

  4. 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?

  5. 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

  1. Nov 01 2021
    Petition DENIED.
  2. Oct 06 2021
    DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 10/29/2021.
  3. Sep 21 2021
    Waiver of right of respondent Google LLC and YouTube LLC to respond filed.
  4. Sep 13 2021
    Petition for a writ of certiorari filed. (Response due October 18, 2021)