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Exhibit 1121

O'Handley v. Weber, 62 F.4th 1145 (9th Cir. 2023), No. 22-15071

Exhibit 1121 · Court opinion

O'Handley v. Weber, 62 F.4th 1145 (9th Cir. 2023), No. 22-15071

In the aftermath of the 2020 election, the OEC touted that it had flagged for Facebook and Twitter nearly “300 erroneous or misleading social media posts” and that “98 percent of those posts were promptly removed for violating the respective social media compan[ies’] community standards.”

Holds that Twitter's moderation of a user's post after California's Office of Elections Cybersecurity (OEC) flagged it was not state action. The opinion records that Twitter gave election officials in at least 38 states access to a Partner Support Portal and that California's Secretary of State formed the OEC in 2018. It quotes the OEC's own statement that after the 2020 election it had flagged nearly 300 posts for Facebook and Twitter and that 98 percent were promptly removed. It holds that even if the OEC's message was a request to remove the post, compliance 'was purely optional' with 'no intimation that Twitter would suffer adverse consequences'.

Source
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
Date
10 March 2023
Quoted from
Opinion, Background (slip op. p. 7)
Grade
Primary record
Document
https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2023/03/10/22-15071.pdf
Accessed
2026-11-10
Cited by
Findings citing this exhibit

Cited by

Finding INF-4.9
Primary record California's Office of Elections Cybersecurity stated that it flagged nearly 300 posts to Facebook and Twitter after the 2020 election and that 98 percent were promptly removed for violating the platforms' community standards. The Ninth Circuit held in 2023 that Twitter's compliance with such a flag was optional, and held in 2024 that the content-category reporting provisions of California's AB 587 likely violate the First Amendment.
Finding INF-4.13
Primary record The 2026 consent decree in Missouri v. Biden bars the Surgeon General, the CDC and CISA from threatening platforms with punishment unless they remove or reduce protected speech, and records no admission (para. 17). The Ninth Circuit held in O'Handley (2023) that compliance with a California office's flag was optional for Twitter, with no intimation of adverse consequences, and that Twitter's moderation was not state action. Twitter's 2023 brief in Trump v. Twitter, a litigation position, argues that coercion requires the threat of a government sanction and that the FBI's emails were advisory.