Ex-Gay Pastor Appeals After Court Rules Section 230 Allows Big Tech to Discriminate Against Him

PJ Media ^ | 12/11/2020 | Tyler O' Neill

[SeekAndFind]

On Thursday, a pastor who previously lived a homosexual lifestyle made his appeal in a unique case regarding discrimination and Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA), which protects Big Tech companies from liability for the content third-parties post on their platforms. The pastor is suing Vimeo for discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and religion after the platform banned him from publishing videos telling the stories of people who identify as ex-gay.

“This is a case of grave importance because it is about whether big tech platforms can unlawfully discriminate against persons based on religion or sexual orientation,” attorney Nada Higuera argued on Thursday in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.

Southern California Christian Pastor Jim Domen sued Vimeo, claiming the platform discriminated against him on the basis of his Christian religion and his sexual orientation as a former homosexual. The lower court granted Vimeo’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit, claiming Section 230 allowed the company to discriminate against the pastor. This logic echoes a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling along similar lines.

“This case is significant because the lower court and the Ninth Circuit have interpreted the federal Communications Decency Act to give immunity to Big Tech whenever such a company commits unconscionable acts of discrimination in their online filtering decisions against protected classes of individuals – for example, classifications based on race, religion, color creed or sexual orientation,” attorney Robert Tyler, Partner at Tyler & Bursch, LLP and President of Advocates for Faith & Freedom, said in a statement.

According to Higuera, the lower court’s interpretation of Section 230 allows “a company like Vimeo, YouTube or even Amazon [to] decide that it will not allow someone to hold an account with their site just because they are of a particular race or religion.

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Some discrimination is more “equal” than others.

[Svartalfiar]

Section 230, in its entirety:

“No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider."

What possible reading of this text says that a company is allowed (or not allowed) to discriminate against their users? Negative rights, not positive rights. You can't get in trouble for what someone else says. That has nothing to do with you preventing them from saying it.