In YouTube Censorship Case, US Backs Internet Law Trump Scorns

In a censorship case filed against YouTube by LGBTQ content creators, the US Justice Department is defending the law that protects internet companies from lawsuits -- the same statute President Donald Trump has threatened to revoke. President Trump targeted the 1996 law in an executive order as he escalated a fight with Twitter after it tagged two of his tweets as potentially misleading. But three weeks earlier, the Justice Department weighed into the YouTube case and urged a federal judge not to declare the law unconstitutional after the content creators said it allows YouTube to violate their free-speech rights. The content makers accuse YouTube of using unlawful policies and algorithms to restrict the videos they post and strip them of ad revenue. The company denies discriminating against creators and claims it’s immune from the suit under section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which shields tech platforms from being sued over content that users post on their sites.