Texas making it illegal for Social media platforms to ban users based on political opinion

[Jtalk4456]

Summary

Leave your shoes and politics on the mat in front before you come in please. So TLDR is that Texas made a law that puts any social media company over 50 million users in trouble if they ban someone from their platform because of their political views. I'll do my best to make this neutral in the quotes

 

Quotes

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Prominent ... politicians have accused Facebook, Twitter and others of censoring ... views.

...

The social networks have all denied stifling ... views.

However, they do enforce terms of service which prohibit content such as incitement to violence and co-ordinated disinformation.

Right of the bat, ignoring the legal challenges here, they're gonna end up with this getting challenged and have a hard time proving the reasons for bans to be of a discriminatory nature.

Furthermore this is 100% a first amendment violation where the government is trying to force into law a private company allowing their viewpoints on their platform. While there is an argument to me made about the evolving role of social media in real world actions and consequences, I still find no scenario where it is right to force a platform to accept users putting out information the platform doesn't like.

Quote

 

Critics say the law does not respect the constitutional right of private businesses to decide what sort of content is allowed on their platforms.

"This bill abandons ... values, violates the First Amendment, and forces websites to host obscene, anti-semitic, racist, hateful and otherwise awful content," said Steve DelBianco, president of NetChoice trade association.

"Moderation of user posts is crucial to keeping the internet safe for Texas families, but this bill would put the Texas government in charge of content policies."

 

My thoughts

Ironically right after I made a general post asking about slippery slope arguments, I think any time we're directly violating the first amendment, were in a slippery slope. I think this is hands down a bad law, at the very least it's unconstitutional, and I seriously doubt it will hold up to the supreme court due to directly violating the first amendment.

 

Sources

https://www.msn.com/en-xl/news/other/texas-passes-social-media-de-platforming-law/ar-AAOiMHy?ocid=uxbndlbing

[Skiiwee29]

Quote

My thoughts

Ironically right after I made a general post asking about slippery slope arguments, I think any time we're directly violating the first amendment, were in a slippery slope. I think this is hands down a bad law, at the very least it's unconstitutional, and I seriously doubt it will hold up to the supreme court due to directly violating the first amendment.

 

Only problem I see with this statement is that most people do not see or use the First Amendment properly. Its not a protection of private companies not being able to ban who they want when they want for any reason they want... Twitter, Facebook, you name it, they are well within there rights to ban whoever they want, how they want, when they want and there isn't a damn thing anyone can do about it. 

 

The First Amendment is designed to protect YOU from any sort of harassment, backlash or other forms of punishment from the Government for speaking out against them. 

 

This is a thing that a ton of people don't get or don't understand correctly. 

[SansVarnic]

-= Topic Locked =-

 

OK so as you know, and it is clearly stated in the CS.

Quote

• No political content, regardless of your views.
  • If something spans politics and tech, the discussion must remain clearly within tech and must not descend into politics
  • This covers all parts of the site, including status updates

There is a full ban on politics.

This topic has no direct relation to Technology either, social media is not technology it is use of technology....