QAnon Influencers Sue YouTube for Deleting Their Channels, Claim Big Techs Acquiescence to Congress Is Worse Than McCarthyism – Law & Crime

Fifteen conservative YouTubers (or as some have termed them, (QAnon influencers)sued YouTube and Google in California federal court on Tuesday, seeking an emergency injunction that would allow them to get back onto their accounts.

The users channels were deleted after YouTube announced on October 15 that it would thereafter prohibit content that threatens or harasses someone by suggesting they are complicit in one of these harmful conspiracies, such as QAnon or Pizzagate. The group of plaintiffs claimed that they have suffered a violation of their First Amendment rights to broadcast political speech on matters of public interest, as well as a breach of contract.

The complaint alleged that YouTubes massive de-platforming harmed both conservative content creators and American voters. Further, YouTube took this draconian action so swiftly that plaintiffs werent even able to download their own content, they said.

Why did YouTube dothis? the complaint asked and then answered.To frustratethe contracts and tomollify itspartner, Congress, which just days before had passed H.R. 1154, a resolution condemning the existence of conservative contentwhich it characterized as conspiracy theorieson the Internet.

For some background, the resolution to which the Complaint refers was introduced by Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-N.J.) in September. It stated that the House of Representatives condemns QAnon and rejects the conspiracy theories it promotes. The resolution also encourage[d] the FBI and as well as all Federal law enforcement and homeland security agencies to strengthen their focus on preventing violence, threats, harassment, and other criminal activity by extremists motivated by fringe political conspiracy theories.

The plaintiffs also claimed that YouTube is more important than television, that YouTube hasnt done enough to combat cyberbullying, and that YouTubes removal of their content was entirely motivated by its decision to capitulate to bullying by Congress.

Recently, the complaint alleged, politicians from all areas of government have demanded that Big Tech,particularly Google and YouTube, take down content with which they disagreei.e., content that they consider harmful, offensive, conspiracy theories andthe like.Since these demandsbegan, YouTube creators and partners have been excised from the platform, most suddenly on or around October 15.

While conspiracy theories abound, particularly on todays fast-moving information superhighway, lamented the plaintiffs, never since McCarthyism have the government and its actors moved so quickly to condemn and excise them from public debate.

The filing went on to detail several conspiracy theories that turned out to be true, including that the Department of Treasury having killed people with poisoned alcohol during Prohibition, the federal government having lied about treating Black men with syphilis for 40 years, 100 million Americans having been exposed to a carcinogen through the Polio vaccine, the Gulf of Tonkin Incident never having happened, the government having tested LSD on citizens, and others.

YouTubes decision to drop their channels from its platform so soon after Congress introduced H.R. 1154, argued Plaintiffs, is proof that YouTube acted at the direct behest of and encouragement of the United States House of Representatives. Therefore, the argument went, YouTube should be held to the standard of a government actor for purposes of the First Amendment.

Part of the ousted plaintiffs argument is that YouTubes decision to throw them off its platform rests on legal drama over Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. That act, you may remember, is one for which President Donald Trump has been instigating a repeal. According to the plaintiffs, YouTubes haste to purge the disfavored conservative voices is simply an attempt to stay on the governments good side. With Section 230 on the books as is, YouTube, as merely a platform, is shielded from liability based on the postings of its users. Without it, though, YouTube might be liable as a publisher.

The plaintiffs in the litigation against YouTube include Jeff Pedersen, known online as InTheMatrixxx; Jordan Sather of the channel Destroying the Illusion; and Polly St. George, known as Amazing Polly. St. George is believed to be the origin of the debunked Wayfair conspiracy theory. Another plaintiff, who is listed anonymously, runs the SGT Reportwhich has been said to be responsible for spreading the baseless and false Frazzledrip conspiracy theory that Hillary Clinton and Huma Abedin sexually abused a child and drank her blood.

[Image via Caitlin OHara/Getty Images]

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QAnon Influencers Sue YouTube for Deleting Their Channels, Claim Big Techs Acquiescence to Congress Is Worse Than McCarthyism - Law & Crime