Laws enacted in Texas and Florida would restrict social media companies’ ability to decide what user content they wish to publish.
The Supreme Court on Monday will consider whether to uphold Republican-backed laws in Florida and Texas that seek to impose restrictions on the ability of social media companies to moderate content based on the claim that they disfavor conservative speech.
Platforms like Facebook and YouTube, represented by trade groups NetChoice and the Computer and Communications Industry Association, known as CCIA, say that both laws infringe upon the free speech rights of companies under the Constitution’s First Amendment by restricting their ability to choose what content they wish to publish on their platforms.
Various other tech companies that routinely moderate user content oppose the laws, including Reddit, Discord and Yelp.
The laws were enacted by the Republican-led states in 2021 after Twitter, Facebook and others banned former President Donald Trump after his effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election ended in his supporters storming the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
It’s not that they can’t moderate their content at all, it’s specific restrictions on how they can moderate. For example, not being allowed to ban someone who’s running for political office, i.e. they’re still salty about trump getting banned from twitter for a bit.
But yeah, it’s fun to watch the right disregard their professed values whenever it suits them.
The other part of that is the Venn diagram of “hate speech” and “conservative voices” are one, big-ass circle.
Yeah, that too, and there’s also a fair bit of overlap between “conservative voices” and “factually incorrect”. Vaccines come to mind as a topic where conservatives would benefit from platforms not being allowed to weigh in on what’s accurate information and what’s made up nonsense.