As I explained here, since February 10 Facebook and Twitter have been choking off access to Jihad Watch such that total referrals from the two are down by about 20,000 every day, although our overall readership has gone up: Jihad Watch readers are not so easily deterred. Nonetheless, the Facebook/Twitter action against Jihad Watch is just part of their larger and ongoing effort to close off access to voices that dissent from the line favored by the political and media elites. This is a serious freedom of speech issue in the United States, and we are challenging them in court. Here is the latest on that free speech initiative.
“Appeal Filed Challenging Federal Statute Authorizing Censorship by Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube,” American Freedom Law Center, March 6, 2017:
Today, 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.
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.”

Know Thy Enemy says
I wish all the best to Robert Spencer, Pamela Geller, and the rest of AFLC and AFDI teams and hope they prevail. Is there a place where we can donate?
marc says
There are some donate buttons on the toolbar on the right
carpediadem says
Yes indeed good luck guys.
Incidentally., never actually relied on any sites to get here, I always just type in jihadwatch. org.
Wellington says
“……or otherwise objectionable…..”
Talk about overbroad. This could include most anything one wanted to. Surely, it makes a mockery of the First Amendment.
Sam says
We are not surprised. I will continue to help Geller and Spencer as much as (or little) I can help. I wish I could do more.
Shame on ignorant liberals.
Jeanette says
Shame on evil liberals.
Angemon says
Here’s hoping for the best.
R Cole says
These are religious discussions or debates – based on religious beliefs.
It’s as if someone has left Islam and are now prevented from expressing their views openly on Facebook, Youtube and Twitter, compared to if that person had continued to follow Islam. Would be a clear case of religious discrimination. Some arabic speaking ex-Muslims in Europe, have complained of comments being censored on Twitter [or Facebook]. And they believe the decision to remove their comments was based on religious bias. As the network site was using moderators in places like Morocco – which is under Islamic law and where European freedoms are not respected.
The term ‘Islamophobia’ is defined as a person who dislikes Islam, is problematic in a secular society. And as we can see many of those labeled as ‘Islamophobes’ by CAIR are former Muslims or Islamic reformers. We know that CAIR’s main objective is to see sharia law as the law of the land. Only the Constitution guarantees freedom of belief and religion. And any attempt to lay down ‘Islamophobia’ laws in a public forum is unconstitutional.
If this type of censorship was happening in the third world, we would say it’s a case of lack of freedom or persecution.
The social networks can say that users have no right to freely assemble on their platforms, but at the same time it must be made known that it is their policy to discriminate against users on religious grounds.
Jeanette says
“Phobia” means UNREASONABLE fear.
Let’s see; the Muslims have almost totally destroyed the oldest sect of Christianity on Earth (the Coptic Christians); they have beheaded, drowned in cages, burned alive, crucified small children, and called for the forced Muslim mutilation of all females, worldwide.
So just where is the lack of reason in a fear of Islam?
We have allowed the liberals to control everything and everyone with their lies; we cannot afford to let the Muslims do the same, as that is literally a matter of LIFE OR DEATH.
Joe says
When they serve the public they have to serve everyone equally. The DMCA does not protect them from that. I don’t think that business owners should have to accept commissions for works of art such as a wedding cake or photography, but they should have to sell their product such as generic donuts or postcards to all customers. Facebook and Twitter are arguing that with the DMCA they can refuse service, but the DMCA only protects them against copyright infringement.
Larry A. Singleton says
I was just blocked again; for the fifth time. Zuckerberg is the worst kind of moral degenerate and social predator using “Community Standards” as his perverted Thought Police.
Daniel Triplett says
Zuckerberg is such an arrogant douche.
And I’m so sick and tired of seeing him wear nothing but those punk-ass t-shirts and jeans. Put on a suit and tie you bazillionaire dhimmi fool.
citycat says
Those infidel truth avoiders are what?
Islam states openly and clearly and honestly the intention of Islam to kill or convert all infidels
Maybe there are dark grinning demons lurking in high power spaces to cause
Fear and Treachery
Who knows?
?
Eileen says
I just tried to post this on FB and it redirected it, blanking it out with some links to their legal policy regarding offensive content.
Daniel Triplett says
I recently got harassed by Twitter as well. I’ve been active in the past with it, having about 50K followers. I have also broadcast links to many of Robert and Pamela’s articles over the years.
Then a few weeks ago, they locked me out, and if I wanted back in, they forced me to delete anything I said about Islam, Muslims, or the Counter-jihad, going back over a year ago. Most were really tame tweets.
The remarks I make on this site are 100 times more hawkish and aggressive than the tweets Twitter forced me to delete.
This is horseshit. Meanwhile, jihadists are allowed to tweet non-stop 24/7 hate tweets with impunity.
I was tweeting virtually anything I wanted about the Islamic War, uncensored, for at least five years, with very graphic photos of their atrocities, along with disparaging memes against Islam; and Twitter never screwed with me. They let me go full-throttle Crusader. Something happened recently though to make them go pro-jihad.
I’m with you Robert. I don’t want to patronize them anymore either. But I don’t know how else to spread the Word anymore, besides here. I’ve always hated Facebook, but they’re a problem too now anyway. Medium.com is great, allowing uncensored essays of any length, but it doesn’t have the enormous audience Twitter and FB have.
I still like posting here on JW, and will continue as long as Robert lets me, but really I’m just preaching to the choir here. My aim is to alert the Useful Idiots out there to the Islamic threat, and how to eliminate the threat. Twitter was an excellent tool to get wide exposure, and bring them to JW until a few weeks ago.
Maybe there’s a business opportunity here to start a new Twitter type thing, but with unlimited characters, and no censoring. Anything goes (except child porn); even letting Muslims say anything they want, which will scare the shit out of everyone else, alerting even more people to the truth. We should let Ummah post any pics they want too.
Larry A. Singleton says
“but really I’m just preaching to the choir here. My aim is to alert the Useful Idiots out there”
I don’t know if you’ll be able to read this. The email alert function doesn’t work for me for some reason.
Anyway, you absolutely nail it on the head. That’s the SOLE reason I use Fakebook. To post on places like University Fakebook pages the articles and essays and books that I read on the issues. Zuckerberg, the fascist, makes it as difficult as possible for conservatives. Also, I wish people would contact websites that use the Fakebook comment function as you can’t comment even if you leave the “Post to Facebook” box unchecked. That’s censorship and even sites that are as rabid about Islam as Jihad Watch don’t seem to care that they’re aiding and abetting Fakebook censorship by using the comment feature. I’ve contacted just about every conservative website that uses Fakebook comments and have never gotten a response and they’ve never changed.