Supreme Court Narrowly Blocks Law That Would Make Social Media Platforms Unusable for Many

Trevor Burrus andNicole Saad BembridgeTexas passedHB20last September to combat the allegedly “dangerous movement by social media companies to silence conservative viewpoints and ideas.” Yesterday, in a victory for First Amendment rights on the internet, a sharply divided Supreme Court temporarily blocked the law from going into effect. The Supreme Court is likely to consider this controversial law, or another like it, on the merits in future, and the alignment of votes in yesterday ’s decision provides some insight into how the justices would rule in such a case.HB20prohibits social media platforms from “censoring” lawful content based on any viewpoint it expresses, ranging from the innocuous —whether pineapple belongs on pizza—to the vile—whether the Holocaust was justified.Platforms that violate this requirement face liability for each piece of content they remove. Any aggrieved user may sue the platforms for “viewpoint discrimination,” even if that user didn’t post the content themselves.NetChoice and CCIA, two trade associations of online businesses, sued Texas immediately after HB20 ’s passage in a federal district court, arguing the law violated platforms ’ well‐​established First Amendment right to choose what content they host. The district court agreed and issued a preliminary injunction. Texas then appealed the district court ’s decision to the Fifth Circuit (where Catofiled a brief in support of NetChoic...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs