Two Sides of the Same Coin

In my last blog, I wrote about a recent Texas law banning censorship by social media platforms and the ensuing court appeals. The argument being made in court is whether big tech has a right to “censor” those who hold viewpoints not approved by the media platform. The bottom-line question is do the big tech platforms have a First Amendment right to censor what people say on their platform or do the people have a First Amendment right to say what they want without censorship. In the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit decision Judge Andrew Oldham wrote, “We reject the Platforms’ attempt to extract a freewheeling censorship right from the Constitution’s free speech guarantee. The Platforms are not newspapers. Their censorship is not speech.” Judge Edith Jones concurred in the 2-1 decision. She called the tech companies’ argument that the First Amendment protects social media platforms’ ability to curate content, much like a newspaper does “ludicrous.” However, the third judge...

Texas bill HB20  which banned censorship by social media platforms was  passed in September 2021. The reason given by Republican Attorney General, Ken Paxton, was to keep companies like Facebook and Twitter from censoring conservative users. It was classified as a partisan bill and was sponsored by 65 Republicans. The bill was to become effective in December 2021, although it was appealed. The law allowed both the state of Texas and individual Texans to sue companies if they “censor” an individual based on their viewpoints or their geographic location by banning them or blocking, removing or otherwise discriminating against their posts. A federal appeals court allowed the law to go into effect on May 11, 2022.  On May 31, 2022, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 to grant an emergency stay request to block the law which was being appealed in federal appellate court. The request was made by tech industry groups. No lawsuits had been filed between May 11, the day the law became...