Big win for the people in America 5th Circuit Court Ruling

[Pup Shepard]

Quote

 

On Sept. 16, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit handed down a long-awaited ruling in NetChoice v. Paxton, upholding the constitutionality of a Texas law that greatly restricts the ability of large social media platforms to moderate content and imposes certain transparency requirements. NetChoice, a trade association, challenged the legislation on First Amendment grounds. 

The Fifth Circuit had previously stayed a preliminary injunction against the law issued by a district court, only for the Supreme Court to vacate the stay. In its ruling today finding the legislation constitutional, the appeals court found a key provision limiting content moderation practices to be acceptable under the First Amendment because it "does not chill speech; instead, it chills censorship."

 

 

Summary

 

 

 

My thoughts

I hope this sticks.  Be prepared for an appeal.  I'm sure the fight against this is not over.

 

Sources

https://www.lawfareblog.com/fifth-circuit-upholds-texas-social-media-law

[An0maly_76]

Stick THAT in your pipe and smoke it, Karen!

[aisle9]

This is perhaps the most anti-consumer, pro-corporation Court ever. Keep that in mind.

[starsmine]

Im not sure that I would call it a big win for the American people. Nor am I sure how I would discuss this topic without getting political in a way that breaks the forums rules.
This bill's entire existence was politically motivated based off an incorrect perception of bias.
Perception is reality, even if that perception does not match up to reality.

As far as I can see it, this bill, and now this ruling only empowers and institutionalizes the ability for groups or parties to Astroturf an idea.
Social media companies already dont do enough to put the brakes on the proliferation of disinformation campaigns, and to handicap them by law is a weird decision to me.

 

[CarlBar]

27 minutes ago, starsmine said:

Social media companies already dont do enough to put the brakes on the proliferation of disinformation campaigns, and to handicap them by law is a weird decision to me.

 

This. This is the major takeaway, but any further elaboration on the point is inherently political.

[Taf the Ghost]

4 hours ago, starsmine said:

Im not sure that I would call it a big win for the American people. Nor am I sure how I would discuss this topic without getting political in a way that breaks the forums rules.
This bill's entire existence was politically motivated based off an incorrect perception of bias.
Perception is reality, even if that perception does not match up to reality.

As far as I can see it, this bill, and now this ruling only empowers and institutionalizes the ability for groups or parties to Astroturf an idea.
Social media companies already dont do enough to put the brakes on the proliferation of disinformation campaigns, and to handicap them by law is a weird decision to me.

 

Then the social media companies are legally liable for all defamation posted on their sites. We're back to the Section 230 issues at the core the discussion, and that's the reason response laws are showing up.

 

Considering there's currently multiple lawsuits working their way through over Social Media companies censoring, suppressing and banning individuals at the direction of the US Government over real information they wanted suppressed (which is a Crime by those Government officials, btw), Social Media companies are already completely attached to the US Government. This means they'll face the reality of incorporation of the legal structure.

 

Far too many that are online are far too comfortable viewing everything they disagree with as automatically criminal and a violation of standards. And if we're going to take about "disinformation", well, you're going to need to ban every Corporate Media from all of the platforms. Because useful information isn't what they provide.

[SansVarnic]

-= Topic Moved to General Discussion. =-

This is about politics and social media not tech.

 

Discussion of what is and is not considered "free speech" according to US laws is not tech topic. /LogicalDream