Posted on 09/17/2022 11:53:39 AM PDT by aimhigh
This ruling by the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit sets up the potential for the Supreme Court to rule on the law, which could be a major setback for the "Big Tech" industry as many conservatives and others with right-leaning opinions accuse companies such as Meta and Twitter of political censorship.
A Texas law preventing large social media platforms from banning or censoring users based on their political viewpoints will go into effect after a federal appeals court lifted a block placed on the statute on Friday, reported Reuters.
This ruling by the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit sets up the potential for the Supreme Court to rule on the law, which could be a major setback for the "Big Tech" industry as many conservatives and others with right-leaning opinions accuse companies such as Meta and Twitter of political censorship.
(Excerpt) Read more at thepostmillennial.com ...
The Texas law: https://legiscan.com/TX/text/HB20/id/2424328
Big Tech couldn’t give a flying fig what the courts say.
Bad idea to prevent Twitter et al from censorship. A law that prevents twitter from censorship would apply to all corporations, large and small. Would not allow me to censor my employees from publishing anti-owner screeds on company wbsite.
There needs to be a better solution
The Texas law only applies to:
(b) This chapter applies only to a social media platform that functionally has more than 50 million active users in the United States in a calendar month.
If bots are eliminated, not many platforms would be affeced.
“Big Tech couldn’t give a flying fig what the courts say.”
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Agreed. How would we know, who would enforce it, and what would the penalties be?
I’m honestly being more ignorant than cynical when I ask that. Someone please feel free to educate me. Thanks.
You’re wrong and have no understanding of how this works. Read the appeals court ruling and then come back here more informed.
There are no penalties except for legal fees. So I see a rich business in becoming a lawyer in Texas offering to go after these guys for free. Your fees will be paid when you win. And you just keep filing lawsuit after lawsuit after lawsuit. A man can get rich this way. Bill rate of $500 per hour.
The above is a completely wrong and reductive reading of this brilliant opinion [https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/22417946/2022-09-16-published-opinion-dckt.pdf] which exhaustively distinguishes between the limits on censorship ability of an "expression platform" with whose content the corporation claims no association and none is implied or imagined, and the allowable limits on corporate censorship in venues where its own voice is stifled or its own views subverted (such as forcing opposing viewpoints on a corporate website, which is the sanctioned and de facto location of the corporation's own viewpoints). The judge has done a magisterial job laying out the differing judgement standards for the 2 situations, backed by exhaustive case citations, common law examples (going back 500 years) and the positions staked out by the corporate petitioners themselves. The opinion is a tour-de-force, with which the Supremes will have to contend.
It does not work that way. If this goes into effect, they will change. After all, they are driven by lawyers, and no corporation is stupid enough to ignore a court decision.
You have no understanding of the law of unintended consequences. US history is rife with examples of well-meaning laws being used for nefarious purposes. One recent example, using sex discrimination laws to force men into women’s bathrooms.
All it takes is one judge to rule that an employee feedback blog on the company website is no different than Facebook or Twitter. And indeed, from a technical implementation viewpoint, its exactly the same.
Bookmark
Not really, but even if you’re right what’s wrong with freedom of speech. And for a business you can apply policies uniformly. So if you so no politics you ban all politics. If you say no curse words...then you punish anyone that uses them. I really don’t see the downside. Even for FR. They’d just need to make a no spam rule and apply it equally to keep the few leftists out.
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