Case 5:17-cv-06064-LHK Document 54 Filed 03/26/18 Page 15 of 27 1 extended to support Plaintiff’s contention that Defendants should be treated as state actors subject 2 to First Amendment scrutiny merely because they hold out and operate their private property as a 3 forum for expression of diverse points of view. Opp. at 18. United States District Court Northern District of California 4 Plaintiff also cites to the United States Supreme Court’s recent opinion in Packingham v. 5 North Carolina, 137 S. Ct. 1730 (2017), but that case also does not support Plaintiff’s position. In 6 Packingham, the Supreme Court invalidated a North Carolina state law that made it a felony for a 7 registered sex offender to access any social media website that permitted minors to become 8 members as violative of the First Amendment’s Free Speech Clause. Id. at 1738. Although 9 Packingham spoke of “cyberspace” and “social media in particular” as “the most important places 10 . . . for the exchange of views” in modern society, id. at 1735–36, Packingham did not, and had no 11 occasion to, address whether private social media corporations like YouTube are state actors that 12 must regulate the content of their websites according to the strictures of the First Amendment. 13 Instead, as discussed above, Packingham concerned whether North Carolina ran afoul of the First 14 Amendment by enacting a statute that prohibited certain persons from using certain social media 15 websites. See also Nyabwa v. Facebook, 2018 WL 585467, *1 (S.D. Tex. Jan. 26, 2018) 16 (“Although the Court recognized in Packingham . . . that social media sites like Facebook and 17 Twitter have become the equivalent of a public forum for sharing ideas and commentary, the 18 Court did not declare a cause of action against a private entity such as Facebook for a violation of 19 the free speech rights protected by the First Amendment.”). 20 Plaintiff’s citations to Denver Area Educational Telecommunications Consortium, Inc. v. 21 FCC, 518 U.S. 727 (1996), and Cornelius v. NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, Inc., 22 473 U.S. 788 (1985), are unavailing for similar reasons. Although both cases mentioned that 23 public forums may include “private property dedicated to public use,” see Denver Area, 518 U.S. 24 at 749; Cornelius, 473 U.S. at 801, both cases addressed whether certain speech restrictions 25 enacted by the federal government violated the First Amendment. Specifically, Denver Area 26 involved a challenge to a federal statute regulating the broadcasting of offensive “sex-related 27 28 15 Case No. 17-CV-06064-LHK ORDER GRANTING DEFENDANTS’ MOTION TO DISMISS PLAINTIFF’S FEDERAL CAUSES OF ACTION; DISMISSING PLAINTIFF’S STATE LAW CAUSES OF ACTION; AND DENYING PLAINTIFF’S MOTION FOR A PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION