The Supreme Court has barred Texas from enforcing the social media ‘censorship’ law
Top line
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court temporarily blocked a Texas law aimed at restricting the ability of users of social media platforms to control content, a law that advocates promote freedom of speech but critics say would force platforms such as Facebook and Twitter to tolerate extremism.
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Here is some basic information
The court granted a request by the NetChoice and Computer and Communications Industry Association to overturn a lower court’s decision and temporarily suspend a ban that would prevent the law from being enforced during the trial.
The ruling comes after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit unexpectedly overturned a ruling barring Texas from enforcing the law, which would ban social media platforms from “censoring” based on users’ “views” whether published on or off the platform.
CCIA and NetChoice claimed in a filing that the law would allow platforms to send propaganda from the Kremlin, ISIS and the KKK. This will drive advertisers away, and will require the abolition of content controls that cost billions.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, along with other officials, argued that social media platforms had become the gatekeepers of public squares and therefore imposed heavy hand and arbitrary censorship.
In a dissenting opinion, Justice Samuel Alito said it was “not at all clear” how pre-Internet judgments should be applied to social media platforms, arguing that the Supreme Court’s intervention was premature.
What to see here
If Texas Court of Appeals wins, Texas law will be restored.
Tangent
Texas law does not mandate that social media platforms allow any speech. Platforms will still be able to remove content that “directly incites” criminal activity or includes specific threats of violence against an individual or group of people due to race, gender or other personal characteristics. Platforms will still be able to remove content requested by groups working to stop sexual abuse or harassment of survivors of sexual abuse.
Important background
The 2021 Texas law was prompted by allegations that Facebook and Twitter were censoring conservatives. The supposed liberal bias of these platforms has created a marketplace for right-leaning alternatives such as Parlor, Gab and Donald Trump’s Truth Social, which in short has become the most downloaded free app in Apple’s App Store despite widespread technical issues. These alternative platforms are not big enough to threaten the popularity of Facebook and Twitter which have 229 million active users and 1.93 billion respectively. Research has so far failed to confirm the popular notion that major social media platforms censor right-leaning users: Twitter’s internal research has found that the platform promotes content from right-wing sources rather than left-wing content, while a study by MIT, University of X Researchers have found that Republicans are more likely to be banned from Twitter because they are more likely to promote it. ForbiddenMisinformation, and Twitter is not biased against them.
Excessive reading
“Tech groups representing Facebook and Twitter sue Texas over social media censorship law” (SME)
