US Supreme Court puts Texas social media law on hold
- Reference: 1654038498
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2022/05/31/us_supreme_court_restores_preliminary/
- Source link:
The law, signed in September by Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R), and promptly opposed, forbids large social media companies from moderating lawful content based on a "viewpoint," such as "smoking cures cancer" or "vaccines are poison" or hateful theories of racial superiority. Its ostensible purpose is to prevent internet giants from discriminating against conservative social media posts, something that studies indicate is not happening.
Those fighting the law – industry groups and advocacy organizations – say the rules would require large social media services such as Facebook and Twitter to distribute "lawful but awful" content – hate speech, misinformation, and other dubious material. They argue companies have a First Amendment right to exercise editorial discretion for the content distributed on their platforms.
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Earlier this month, the US Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals [2]vacated a preliminary injunction put in place last year by a district court hearing a challenge brought by tech trade groups NetChoice and CCIA against HB 20. That allowed Texas to begin enforcing HB 20 while the legal challenge to the law remains unresolved and threatens online content moderation in the state.
Florida's content-moderation law kept on ice, likely unconstitutional, court says [3]RELATED
So last week, a coalition of advocacy groups petitioned the US Supreme Court to undo the Fifth Circuit decision
[4]PDF
while Texas argued to the contrary[5]PDF
, characterizing large social media firms as "common carriers" just like network service providers that are subject to limits on how they police speech.That particular line of reasoning didn't impress the US Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals last week in its consideration of SB 7072, Florida's similar social media law. The Eleventh Circuit [6]partially upheld a lower court's preliminary injunction blocking the Florida law on the basis that certain portions are likely to violate US First Amendment free speech protections. The Florida ruling said the state could not strip businesses of their free speech rights simply by declaring them to be common carriers.
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As for the Texas law, the Supreme Court voted 5 to 4
[9]PDF
to grant the plaintiffs' application to vacate the Fifth Circuit's stay of the preliminary injunction granted by the district court. By doing so, the Supreme Court temporarily halted the enforcement of HB 20 once again. The Justices opposing the decision were Kagan, Alito, Thomas, and Gorsuch, with the last three joining the dissent authored by Alito."While I can understand the Court’s apparent desire to delay enforcement of HB 20 while the appeal is pending, the preliminary injunction entered by the District Court was itself a significant intrusion on state sovereignty, and Texas should not be required to seek preclearance from the federal courts before its laws go into effect," Justice Alito wrote.
Texas should not be required to seek preclearance from the federal courts before its laws go into effect
In a Twitter [10]post , University of Texas School of Law professor Stephen Vladeck said, "To be clear, the headline here is not the dissent; it’s that Chief Justice Roberts, Justice Kavanaugh, and Justice Barrett all voted to block HB20."
"That’s a pretty powerful sign of where [11]#SCOTUS is heading on this case – and issue – even if the dissent's analysis is … alarming."
[12]
The Chamber of Progress, a tech industry trade group, welcomed the Supreme Court intervention.
"As we debate how to stop more senseless acts of violence, Texas's law would force social media to host racist, hateful, and extremist posts," said Chamber of Progress CEO Adam Kovacevich in a statement emailed to The Register . "Anti-content moderation laws are so actively harmful that our nation’s highest court took an emergency appeal to prevent this law from taking effect." ®
Get our [13]Tech Resources
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[2] https://www.theregister.com/2022/05/12/appeals_court_lets_texas_law/
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2022/05/23/florida_social_media_law_likely/
[4] https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/21/21A720/225388/20220513192559757_Supreme%20Court%20Vacatur%20Application.pdf
[5] https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/21/21A720/225744/20220518161236259_21A720%20Response%20to%20Application.pdf
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2022/05/23/florida_social_media_law_likely/
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[9] https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/21a720_6536.pdf
[10] https://twitter.com/steve_vladeck/status/1531745173910302722?s=20
[11] https://twitter.com/hashtag/SCOTUS?src=hashtag_click
[12] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YpbkYMZGfFqTAu-WVg8MRwAAAIM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[13] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
I can’t imagine …
… Benjamin Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanack being forced to publish articles in support of England.
Franklin stopped publishing Poor Richard’s Almanack in 1758, several years before his opposition to UK policies began (with the 1765 Stamp Act). Note that he lived in London for most of the period between 1757 and 1774.
preclearance for unconstituional state laws?
"Texas should not be required to seek preclearance from the federal courts before its laws go into effect"
INAL (and not an American) but I find this reasoning bizarre - of course a state doesn't need to seek clearance before they write their own laws, but if you write a law that is unconstitutional then surely you should expect it to be challenged before it goes into effect. If New York state wrote a law that banned all private firearm ownership I'd expect that law would be challenged before the guns were confiscated too.
Re: preclearance for unconstituional state laws?
Have you seen the idiots who write laws in American state legislatures?
Yes, ALL states absolutely should have to get preclearance before ANY law goes into effect. Unconstitutional laws cause real harm to real people. Having courts review them before they could do that would be absolutely amazing.
of course a state doesn’t need to seek clearance before they write their own laws
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 required preclearance for certain states and counties (determined by a “coverage formula” within the Act) to change their election laws. In Shelby County v. Holder (2013), though, the Supreme Court determined the coverage formula to be unconstitutional, which made the preclearance unenforceable.
I wonder what would happen if...
If the Texas law is allowed to stand & Texas starts to enforce it, at which point all the various interactive sites suddenly throw up a firewall to keep all Texas-based IP's off their services entirely.
"We're sorry but your state has decided to violate our 1st Amendment Rights. We are unable to provide you any content as long as law $X is enforce. If you wish access to be restored in your state, please contact your local representative & appeal for saner heads to prevail. Thank you."
Yes the use of VPN's would go up, but that would only prove the site's point that Texas is no longer welcome to play in the same sandbox as everyone else. If the only way Texas residents can access $Site is to arrive via VPN to disguise the fact that they are Texans, there *will* be backlash against the political dipshits that caused the situation in the first place. Yes there will be backlash against the sites as well, but that can be deflected simply by pointing out that it's a Texas law that prevents them from allowing such interactions.
"Hey, we'd love to invite you in, but Texas says we're not allowed to do anything about that "I love Hitler" t-shirt you're wearing. We don't approve & Texas won't let us excersize our rights not to do business with you. Please have a nice day somewhere else. Thanks."
If a state wants to pass such a law, what would happen if all the sites affected by such a law just blocked all the IP's from inside that state from accessing their resources?
Re: I wonder what would happen if...
> If a state wants to pass such a law, what would happen if all the sites affected by such a law just blocked all the IP's from inside that state from accessing their resources?
The Texas state law also attempts to prohibit social media companies from not allowing Texas-based users to access their sites.
Good luck with that one!
Bwahahahahahaaha
I never get tired of RWNJ self pwnage.
Thanks
As much as I would like to see Google broken up and Facebook destroyed utterly, the last thing we need is for what little content moderation that there is to be removed.
I thank the Court for ruling that the law should be halted until the lawsuit(s) against it are resolved.
I hope the Court rules (when the actual appeal works its way up to them) that companies have the right to publish what they want and not publish what they don't want which is what the 1st Amendment is all about. I can't imagine Benjamin Franklin's Poor Richard's Almanac being forced to publish articles in support of England.