Case 5:17-cv-06064-LHK Document 54 Filed 03/26/18 Page 16 of 27 1 material on cable television,” 518 U.S. at 732, while Cornelius addressed a challenge to an 2 executive order that excluded “legal defense and political advocacy organizations” from 3 participating in a “charity drive aimed at federal employees.” 473 U.S. at 790. Therefore, neither 4 case addressed the circumstances in which a private property owner must be treated as a state actor 5 for constitutional purposes. United States District Court Northern District of California 6 In sum, Plaintiff has not shown that Defendants have engaged in one of the “very few” 7 public functions that were traditionally “exclusively reserved to the State.” Flagg Bros., 436 U.S. 8 at 158. Defendants do not appear to be at all like, for example, a private corporation that governs 9 and operates all municipal functions for an entire town, see Marsh, 326 U.S. at 507–09, or one that 10 has been given control over a previously public sidewalk or park, see Evans v. Newton, 382 U.S. 11 296 (1966), or one that has effectively been delegated the task of holding and administering public 12 elections, see Smith v. Allwright, 321 U.S. 649, 664 (1944). Instead, Defendants are private 13 entities who created their own video-sharing social media website and make decisions about 14 whether and how to regulate content that has been uploaded on that website. Numerous other 15 courts have declined to treat similar private social media corporations, as well as online service 16 providers, as state actors. Howard v. Am. Online, Inc., 208 F.3d 741, 754 (3d Cir. 2000) (rejecting 17 argument that AOL should be deemed a state actor because it is a “quasi-public utility” that 18 “involves a public trust”); Nyabwa, 2018 WL 585467 at *1 (“Because the First Amendment 19 governs only governmental restrictions on speech, Nyabwa has not stated a cause of action against 20 Facebook.”); Shulman v. Facebook.com, 2017 WL 5129885, *4 (D.N.J. Nov. 6, 2017) (rejecting 21 the plaintiff’s constitutional claims against Facebook for failure to sufficiently allege that 22 Facebook is a state actor); Kinderstart.com LLC v. Google, Inc., 2007 WL 831806, *13–15 (N.D. 23 Cal. Mar. 16, 2007) (rejecting arguments that Google is a state actor for constitutional purposes); 24 Langdon v. Google, Inc., 474 F. Supp. 2d 622, 631–32 (D. Del. 2007) (finding that Google is a 25 private entity that is “not subject to constitutional free speech guarantees” and asserting that the 26 United States Supreme Court “has routinely rejected the assumption that people who want to 27 28 16 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