From The Wall Street Journal:
Can government tell Big Tech companies how to edit content and police their platforms? That’s the question before the Supreme Court on Monday in two cases with major First Amendment implications (Moody v. NetChoice and NetChoice v. Paxton).
NetChoice, a tech industry group, is challenging Texas and Florida laws that seek to prevent social-media platforms from silencing conservatives. Republicans are rightly frustrated by censorship that often tilts against conservatives, including us. But the solution to business censorship of conservatives isn’t government censorship of business.
The Florida law bans large social-media platforms from removing the accounts of political candidates, or suppressing posts by or about them. Platforms also can’t take “any action to censor, deplatform, or shadow ban a journalistic enterprise based on the content of its publication or broadcast,” and they must apply their standards “in a consistent manner” among their users.
The Texas law bars platforms from making editorial decisions based on the viewpoint of a user’s expression, which isn’t clearly defined. The law is so broad it could be read to bar platforms from suppressing pro-Nazi speech or content that glorifies eating disorders. Both laws require platforms to explain in detail why posts are removed. Companies could face stiff government penalties and lawsuits.
NetChoice makes a strong case that the laws abridge First Amendment speech rights by restricting the editorial discretion of platforms. Only last term the Court ruled in 303 Creative LLC that Colorado couldn’t compel a website designer to create work that violates her values. The same principle, NetChoice says, should apply to the Texas and Florida laws.
While such social-media platforms as Instagram and YouTube aren’t traditional publishers like newspapers and broadcasters, they exercise editorial judgment when they decide what content to remove, suppress or amplify. They also exercise discretion when curating user feeds and making recommendations.
The states disagree. They claim their laws regulate business conduct, not expression. They also argue that states can prohibit businesses that open themselves to the public from discriminating against customers under the common-carrier legal doctrine that predates the U.S. Constitution.
“Common carriers have generally opened their facilities to all speakers and speech,” Florida writes in its brief. “Requiring them to open that door a crack more interferes with no expression of their own. Thus, the telephone company, internet-service provider, and delivery service have license neither to snuff out the speech they carry, nor to cancel disfavored subscribers.”
This analogy is inapt. Businesses that are regulated as common carriers like telephone companies, taxis, railroads and electric utilities don’t engage in editorial or expressive activity. Yet the states implicitly concede that social-media platforms do engage in such expression when they accuse them of discriminating against disfavored speech. Florida and Texas can’t have it both ways.
The overriding problem is that extending common-carrier regulation to social-media platforms invites more government control of speech. Do Florida and Texas want Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan dictating what can and can’t be said online? Could California pass a law requiring companies to remove posts that criticize male transgender participation in women’s sports?
. . . .
The Florida and Texas laws do the same. If the laws stand, companies would no doubt refrain from policing their platforms to avoid being bankrupted by litigation. Some conservatives might prefer an online free-for-all, and the free market has given birth to platforms for them. Elon Musk has taken a lighter touch to content regulation since buying X, formerly Twitter. But if you’re worried about the cultural damage from social media now, imagine if sites are obliged to let anything go.
These two cases, by the way, are separate from one the Court will hear in a few weeks concerning Biden Administration pressure on tech platforms to censor conservatives. That case, Murthy v. Missouri, implicates government censorship that strikes us as a First Amendment violation.
Conservatives are understandably concerned that left-leaning tech companies want to exclude their ideas. There is no easy solution to this problem. Exposure and condemnation of the censorship has helped. But it never turns out well for conservatives, or anyone else, when the supposed remedy is giving government more power to control speech. The Supreme Court can make that clear to Texas and Florida.
Link to the rest at The Wall Street Journal
PG says government power to control speech is always a bad idea.
Content-neutral time, place, and manner restrictions, as defined by Supreme Court, are as far as government should go.
I admit to not being a legal expert but it seems to me that its the platfirms that want it both ways. We’re a platform not a publisher so we’re not liable for what’s posted. But we’re gonna apply editorial discretion. If you edit, you’re a publisher, seems to me. Pick one and deal with what benefit and restrictions go with that.
With authority comes responsibility – which “platforms” have managed to avoid for far too long.
Try this:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/the-supreme-court-appeared-lost-in-a-massive-case-about-free-speech-online/ar-BB1iVPWT?cvid=1e94e7721c7a462c9c3b0d223440fdce&ei=14
“But here’s the rub: The plaintiff challenging these laws, an industry group that represents online companies, brought what is known as a “facial” challenge to the Texas and Florida laws. That means that they seek a court order declaring that both laws essentially must be wiped from the books and cannot ever be applied to anyone — as opposed to a more mild, “as-applied” challenge, which would only prevent the law from being applied to certain parties under certain circumstances.
Ordinarily, a plaintiff bringing a facial challenge “must establish that no set of circumstances exists under which the Act would be valid” (although the rules are somewhat more plaintiff-friendly in First Amendment cases). And, while a majority of the Court appeared to agree Texas and Florida’s attempt to control YouTube or Twitter’s content moderation is unconstitutional, the two states’ laws are so broad that they may also impose obligations on other companies, such as Uber, Etsy, or Gmail, that are not unconstitutional.
And so the Supreme Court appears likely to reinstate the Texas and Florida laws. This is not because the Court thinks they are constitutional, and not because the Court thinks that they are constitutional with respect to the three companies that Texas and Florida actually wanted to regulate. But the ham-handedly drafted laws at issue in the NetChoice cases sweep so broadly that they may have some ancillary effects that are permitted by the First Amendment.
That’s probably the right outcome under existing law, but good Lord, it’s an unsatisfying one. ”
Note the source of the link, a clear heraldic bent sinister. 😉
And the source neglects (intentionally?) to consider that Facebook and Twitter also serve as private communication channels among people with personal relationships and interests, not just PR releases. Which government definitely has the right to regulate.
Essentially, social media has a right to control what *they* say –like the warnings X posts on some twits (sic)–but not necessarilly the messages that pass through their communication channel.