WESTALL v. GOOGLE

Issue: Whether federal officials' alleged coercion and collusion with Google/YouTube to remove Westall's content converted the platforms' content-moderation and algorithmic-suppression decisions into state action in violation of the First Amendment, and whether Google/YouTube's independent conduct gives rise to state-law tort liability notwithstanding §230 of the Communications Decency Act, 47 U.S.C. §230.

Plaintiff Sarah Westall filed this complaint in the District of Columbia federal district court on March 4, 2026, alleging that Biden Administration officials and federal agencies coerced Google/YouTube into terminating her channel in October 2020 and suppressing her content through algorithmic manipulation, as part of a broader government-directed censorship enterprise she terms the "Censorship Industrial Complex." Westall further alleges that YouTube's enforcement was arbitrary and pretextual, evidenced by a reinstatement in August 2024 with an express acknowledgment of no guideline violations, followed by re-termination two days later and subsequent further reversals. The complaint asserts claims under the First Amendment and the Administrative Procedure Act against the United States, and state-law tort claims (including negligent design, tortious interference, defamation, and right of publicity) against Google and YouTube, while expressly contesting the applicability of §230 immunity to the platforms' conduct. Westall seeks damages against the private defendants and injunctive and declaratory relief against all defendants.

The case directly implicates the unresolved post-*Murthy v. Missouri* question of what specific factual showing is sufficient to transform platform content moderation into First Amendment state action through government coercion, and tests whether §230 immunity can be overcome where a platform's moderation decisions are alleged to have been directed or significantly encouraged by federal officials. The complaint's combination of jawboning, algorithmic-suppression, and APA theories against both governmental and private defendants could, if it survives a motion to dismiss, produce district court guidance on the precise coercion threshold required to establish state action in the government-platform censorship context.