Essentially Texas passed a law that said no ones political views could be discriminated against online. And the fifth circuit upheld it. Just a bizarre ruling that seems to defy basic common sense, the constitution, and practical application.it could e impact this forum presumably if volume ever got big enough here. Social media’s legal foundation crumbled in Texas: What happens now?
I’m looking forward to someone publishing Jesus in lurid pics on a church social platform. Or maybe posting abortion arguments in swamp gas. This will be fun.
I haven't read it yet, but for those interested, I think this is the Order from the Western District. https://netchoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/51.-ORDER.pdf
So you would have no problem with organizations advocating violence to promote their political goals having unlimited access to social media to promote their agenda. The legislation does allow moderation of the advocacy of violence but it's very specific and very limited.
I saw it yesterday. Didn't bother to post it here because it's an unserious decision from a couple of partisan clowns.
Luckily it only applies to platforms with more than 50 million users (i.e. about twice the size of Texas’s entire population). So not only is it a blatant first amendment violation, it is targeted retaliation to boot.
That's not how the First Amendment works. The government doesn't get to destroy companies because of the company's political speech. At least, that's how our country and Constitution used to work.
I haven't read the details of this one but did skim the Florida ruling awhile back on that bill. Is it essentially the government seeking to micromanage how private forums are moderated? Think about how difficult that is even on a very small scale when people think (wrongly or rightly) that they're not being treated the same as the other side. "Hey, he was mean to me first, and you didn't say anything to him!" I don't see how that is workable at all. And is it really limited to pure political viewpoint discrimination or is it more broad? For example, are social media and other platforms going to be forced to host pornography because that's protected by the First Amendment? Would it matter if the owner of those forums/platforms says they have a religious objection to hosting such content? Does a conservative have to host communist rhetoric?
Not just that, but Texas's attempts to moderate these platforms would itself be unequal viewpoint discrimination, given they only plan to "protect" conservative speech:
So if someone joined GC and was a georgia bulldog fan and talked trash the whole time, GC couldn't do anything about it?
Opposing political opinions is NOT "trash talking," simply becasue it is an opposing view. It's free speech... on a platform for free speech/opinion.
I sometimes look at Biden bumbling around, farting on stage, and think... who would vote for that man.
