Google Search Isn’t a Common Carrier (duh)–Ohio v. Google

Created by ChatGPT Jan. 2026 Censorship efforts tend to come in fads. Censors get fired up about a new censorship theory and try it out, but the experiment tends to not satisfy them (either because it’s struck down or doesn’t scratch their censorship itch enough) and they move onto the next censorship fad. Rinse and repeat. Around 2020, a censorship fad was to impose common carriage obligations to restrict the editorial decision-making of Internet publishers. This fad triggered a lot of pointless conversations about 19th century technologies, such as railroads. The legal underpinnings of the fad were always obviously mockable, and most censors have already moved onto to newer censorship theories. We’re still dealing with the detritus of the 2020ish common carriage fetishization. As one example, Ohio AG Yost sued Google claiming that Google search was a common carrier. This was always a stupid partisan lawsuit-stunt. Yet, even in the MAGA nirvana of Ohio, the lawsuit got no traction in…