Supreme Court Halts Texas Law on Social Media Content Moderation

[LetMyPeopleVote]

Source: Bloomberg Law

The US Supreme Court blocked a Texas law that critics say would fundamentally transform Twitter Inc. and Meta Platforms Inc.’s Facebook by requiring them to allow hate speech and extremism.

Over four dissents, the justices put the measure on hold while a constitutional challenge goes forward in a lower court, granting a request from tech groups that represent the platforms. A federal appeals court let the law, known as HB20, go into effect earlier this month.

“It will be impossible for these websites to comply with HB20’s key provisions without irreversibly transforming their worldwide online platforms to disseminate harmful, offensive, extremist, and disturbing content,” argued the tech groups, NetChoice and Computer and Communication Industry Association.

The Texas law bars social media platforms with more than 50 million users from discriminating on the basis of viewpoint. Texas Governor Greg Abbott and other Republicans say the law is needed to protect conservative voices from being silenced.

The measure gives Texas residents “equal access to the modern public square and the many benefits resulting from free and open dialogue in that square,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton argued in court papers. He said platforms could still bar broad categories of content, including pornography and spam.

Read more: https://news.bloomberglaw.com/tech-and-telecom-law/supreme-court-halts-texas-law-on-social-media-content-moderation

[LetMyPeopleVote]

1. BREAKING: Supreme Court blocks Texas' social media censorship law by an unusual 5-4 vote.

Link to tweet

[ZonkerHarris]

2. Republicans want to control independent and publicly held corporations.

[ificandream]

8. Except if they're run by Republicans.

Then they'll gladly let the corporations do their thing.

[Coventina]

3. So Texas wants children to be able to see videos of torture and murder?

ISIS would be allowed to post their decapitation films?

[Paladin]

4. This smells like Dan Patrick. (nt)

[BumRushDaShow]

5. WaPo's breaking

Supreme Court puts Texas social media law on hold while legal battle continues


By Robert Barnes and Cat Zakrzewski
May 31, 2022 at 5:03 p.m. EDT


The Supreme Court on Tuesday put on hold a Texas law that bars social media companies from removing posts based on a user’s political ideology, while a legal battle over whether such measures violate the First Amendment continues in lower courts. The vote was 5 to 4. Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil M. Gorsuch, said he would have allowed the law to go into effect. Justice Elena Kagan would have let a decision from the lower court to stand for now, but did not detail her reasoning.

Two Washington-based groups representing Google, Facebook and other tech giants filed the emergency request with the Supreme Court on May 13. The Texas law took effect after a divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit lifted a district court injunction that had barred it. The appeals court’s order, which did not specify its legal reasoning, shocked the industry, which has been largely successful in batting back Republican state leaders’ efforts to regulate social media companies’ content-moderation policies.

Texas and Florida are two states with such laws, which they said were necessary to combat the tech industry’s squelching of conservative viewpoints. On Monday, a unanimous panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit said that much of Florida’s law violated the First Amendment, ruling that social media companies’ efforts to curate the content of their platforms was speech that the government could not control. Unanimous appeals court panel says major parts of Florida's social media law likely unconstitutional

In a detailed, 67-page opinion, the three judges — all appointees of Republican presidents — unanimously rejected many of the legal arguments that conservative states have been using to justify laws governing the moderation policies of major tech companies after years of accusing the tech companies of bias against their viewpoints. The tech companies similarly have called the Texas law “an unprecedented assault on the editorial discretion of private websites (like Facebook.com, Instagram.com, Pinterest.com, Twitter.com, Vimeo.com, and YouTube.com) that would fundamentally transform their business models and services,” according to the Supreme Court application filed by two organizations, NetChoice and the Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA).

(snip)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/05/31/supreme-court-texas-social-media-law/

[cstanleytech]

6. Unlike a telecommunications provider Twitter and other similar online companies do not

provide the only avenue for people to communicate and a company like Twitter can be replaced at the drop of a hat by fickle consumers so I honestly see little chance for such a law being upheld by a legitimate court of law.
Hell, take Myspace or ICQ and how both went from being so popular at one time but those days are over.

[tonekat]

7. But I really, really want

...conservative voices to be silenced, muffled, stifled, told to STFU!

[ruet]

9. The Four Who Dissented Are Idiots.

...including Elena Kagan.

[muriel_volestrangler]

13. So what's up with Kagan?

Alito and Thomas vote right-wing Republican, so they'd go along with Abbott's attempt at a law; Gorsuch tends libertarian, so it's unsurprising he'd go for "meh, Nazis, it's just words" (though he's also pro-corporation, so it wouldn't have been that surprising for him to side with the social media companies). But Kagan doesn't give her reasoning. What is she thinking? If the dissent had won, the companies would have had to start enforcing the law while the full case was considered - a change from how it's now done (in Texas, and in the whole world). Siding with that huge shift seems, as you say, idiotic.

[mpcamb]

14. It may have to do with the court's so-called "shadow docket".

Some of the most important moves by the Supreme Court in the past few years have come from the so-called “shadow docket,” which means they don’t follow the traditional process of briefs, oral arguments, and private discussions among the justices to produce lengthy, heavily footnoted opinions.

...(T)he court has made such procedural decisions on legal cases that addressed have been hotly contested, and their footprint in legal jurisprudence has arguably risen, even though the decisions are supposed to be temporary and not based on the merits of the case.

There are concerns about the growing number and sweep of “shadow docket” decisions.... Chief Justice John Roberts, though others, including Samuel Alito, have put up a robust defense.

Decisions are rushed, that they don’t allow for full arguments, and that the rulings are less transparent than typical cases and can be technical in nature, but they have addressed more hot-button issues than in the past.

Mostly from Politifact

[muriel_volestrangler]

15. Yeah, but she would have come down on the side of "social media must allow hate speech for now"

"... until we've thought about it at length". That, without reasoning, is one of those dodgy "shadow docket" decisions, to me.

[Tarc]

10. A state cannot impose restrictions on a corporation that does not reside there

This whole thing was dumb grandstanding anyways.

[SpankMe]

11. "...the law is needed to protect conservative voices from being silenced."

So, they're admitting that hate speech and extremism are, by definition, conservative voices. I posit that hate speech and extremism are conservative values as well.

There is no evidence that conservative voices have ever been silenced on these social media platforms solely based on their being conservative voices. Terms of service on these platforms apply equally to all users, liberal and conservative. Plenty of liberals have been banned as well. Restricted content are things like racism, violence, disinformation, terrorism, threats, fraud, spam, harassment, disruptive behavior and other stuff.

If conservative users violate these terms more often than liberals - and thus get banned more - for whatever reason, then they need to self-examine and not demand that the rules change in their favor. Conservative social media have tried to enter the fray - Truth Social, etc. - and they have either failed as a business, failed to gain traction, or have devolved in to dark, backwater dens of racism, homophobia, violence and hyper-right-wing ghoulishness.

Conservative platform Parler was founded on a promise of absolute free speech. A known liberal journalist started an account. His very first post was something like "Let's see how long it takes to get banned." His account was terminated a short time later. So much for free speech.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

12. U.S. Supreme Court blocks Texas ban on social media censorship

This is a weird opinion

Link to tweet

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas/article/U-S-Supreme-Court-blocks-Texas-ban-on-social-17210517.php?utm_campaign=socialflow&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=referral

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday blocked a new Texas law barring large social media companies from blocking users based on their viewpoint, putting the measure back on hold as a legal challenge to it moves through the federal courts.

In a 5-4 ruling, the high court reinstated a lower court’s order temporarily blocking the law. Earlier this month, two tech trade groups challenging the law had asked the Supreme Court to step in after a panel of judges on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals — one of the most conservative courts in the nation — revived the law with a one-sentence order.

The law enables Texas residents and Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office to sue large social media companies that remove posts or block users based on the “viewpoint of the user or another person.” The law applies to platforms with more than 50 million monthly active users......

The law enables Texas residents and Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office to sue large social media companies that remove posts or block users based on the “viewpoint of the user or another person.” The law applies to platforms with more than 50 million monthly active users.

[intheflow]

16. I don't understand why Repukes have a problem with a private business

doing whatever the hell they want. I mean, they’re fine with no regulations when it come to the physical environment, but I guess tech companies should be forced to allow dumping on the virtual planet.

But what I really love about this is that they’re admitting their ideas are shit because unless they force private businesses to allow hate speech, they’ll lose all future elections. That’s a level of self-awareness that’s unusual for Repugs, although they probably aren’t aware of their “tell”.

[The Grand Illuminist]

17. Don't think Texas would care

Now that Elon Musk is taking over.