Texas Law Bans Social Media Companies from “Censoring”
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 effective and
May 31, the day it was halted.
The case then proceeded
through the 5th U.S. Circuit of Court of Appeals when on September 16, 2022 the
court ruled to uphold the Texas law. The law will become effective only after the
appeals court issues instructions to the district court that had decided the
case.
The ruling is a win for both
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and A.G. Paxton as they work to combat what they call
censorship of conservative viewpoints by social media companies.
On the other side of the
coin, tech trade groups NetChoice and the Computer and Communications Industry
Association (CCIA), which represent Facebook, Twitter, and Google, argue that
the Texas law violates the companies’ First Amendment rights to control what
content they disseminate on their websites and platforms.
NetChoice Vice
President and General Counsel Carl Szabo made a statement saying the
organization plans to appeal. He continued, “We remain convinced that when the
U.S. Supreme Court hears one of our cases, it will uphold the First Amendment
rights of websites, platforms, and apps.”
CCIA President Matt
Schruers said, “We strongly disagree with the court’s decision. Forcing private
companies to give equal treatment to all viewpoints on their platforms places
foreign propaganda and extremism on equal footing with decent Internet users,
and places Americans at risk.”
Stay tuned to my next
blog, What is a Common Carrier? where this argument continues.
https://legiscan.com/TX/bill/HB20/2021/X2
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/05/31/texas-social-media-censorship-scotus-00036146
Hello! I enjoyed learning about this new Texan law. This seems to be a question of where the free speech lies; in the companies or the individuals. One could argue that arbitrary censorship infringes upon an individuals free speech, and I wouldn't call them wrong. Also, one can say that the companies should reserve the right to restrict speech they don't deem to be appropriate, and they are not wrong either. Unfortunately, what we see is conservative censorship on platforms like Twitter that leads to the creation of Truth Social. The idea of opening a new platform would not be so terrible, but Truth Social is also guilty of restricting individual speech if it is deemed too liberal. The optimal solution, in my opinion, would be to start a company with a high degree of Lockean tolerance to set lenient restrictions on speech. Ideally, it would give both political perspectives equal attention (as we are fairly evenly divided), and keep us in the same space to engage in discourse.
ReplyDeleteGreat post, Deb. I think the discussions around social media "censorship" are really interesting and tend to show how little people understand what I consider to be the basic fundamentals of American government and our constitution. There's pretty much no legal basis for this law, and it feels so much like some convoluted manipulation of their voter base instead of actionable legislation with real potential for impact. i.e., legislators doing what everyone accuses them of doing. I do have some weird feelings about private companies being afforded civil liberties, it feels honestly kinda nasty, but based on legal precedent the companies seeking an appeal here seem to have a much stronger leg to stand on. In short, what a load of frickin baloney.
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