A US federal appeals court rejected claims that social media giants including Alphabet Inc’s Google, Facebook Inc and Twitter Inc conspired to suppress conservative views online.

The US Court of Appeals in Washington on Wednesday affirmed the dismissal of a lawsuit by the nonprofit group Freedom Watch and the right-wing YouTube personality Laura Loomer, who accused the companies of violating antitrust laws and the First Amendment. The organisation didn’t provide enough evidence of an antitrust violation, and the companies aren’t state entities that can violate free speech rights, a three-judge panel held in a decision only four pages long.

“Freedom Watch’s First Amendment claim fails because it does not adequately allege” that the social media platforms “can violate the First Amendment”, the judges wrote. Quoting a previous decision, they found that “in general, the First Amendment ‘prohibits only governmental abridgment of speech’.”

Larry Klayman, a lawyer for Freedom Watch and Loomer, said in an interview that he’d file a petition to have the case reheard by an enlarged “en banc” panel of the court’s judges and take the case to the Supreme Court if necessary. He said he believes the court issued the decision in response to US President Donald Trump’s threat to regulate or shutter social media companies for their alleged anti-conservative bias.

Two of the three judges on the appellate panel were appointed by Republican presidents and one by a Democrat. The district court judge who dismissed the case, Trevor McFadden, was appointed by Trump.

The case is one of several filed by conservatives linking social media bans to the market dominance of big tech companies. The suit blamed an illegal conspiracy by the companies for a “complete halt” of Freedom Watch’s organisational growth and Loomer’s 30-day ban from multiple social media platforms after she said Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) favours Sharia law and is “anti-Jewish”.

The D.C. Circuit’s decision comes after two unlikely allies weighed in on behalf of Freedom Watch and Loomer, asking the court not to affirm the dismissal of the suit without a full proceeding. The District of Columbia’s government and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law filed briefs challenging the trial judge’s conclusion that the D.C. Human Rights Act doesn’t ban discrimination online.

 - Bloomberg