Robert Kennedy Jr.'s effort to force Google to repost two of his videos promoting medical disinformation was shut down by a federal judge on Wednesday who said even if Kennedy's First Amendment argument applied to the private company, it still could have removed the content because it was disinformation, Politico stated.
Kennedy wanted Google, which owns YouTube, to restore two videos he posted that falsely claimed the coronavirus vaccines have significant complications; Kennedy argued Google removed the videos at the behest of the federal government. However, Judge Trina Thompson, a Biden appointee, dismissed the motion, noting that Google is a private company that can make its own rules regarding moderation: "The Court finds that the First Amendment claim is unlikely to succeed on the merits because Google and YouTube are not state actors."
"The coronavirus still poses a health risk to certain individuals, and it would not serve the public interest to let medical misinformation proliferate on YouTube," the judge added in her opinion, saying there is a "public interest of preventing the spread of illness and medical misinformation."