{"id":1647070,"date":"2022-09-19T11:50:31","date_gmt":"2022-09-19T15:50:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1647070"},"modified":"2022-09-19T11:50:49","modified_gmt":"2022-09-19T15:50:49","slug":"social-media-censorship-of-speech-may-head-to-supreme-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/social-media-censorship-of-speech-may-head-to-supreme-court\/","title":{"rendered":"Social Media Censorship of Speech May Head to Supreme Court"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">20<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fsocial-media-censorship-of-speech-may-head-to-supreme-court%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1647070&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p><em>Commentary<\/em><\/p>\n<p>A New Orleans federal appellate court for the Fifth Circuit has\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ca5.uscourts.gov\/opinions\/pub\/21\/21-51178-CV1.pdf\">reversed and remanded<\/a> a lower court decision that held that a Texas law, <a href=\"https:\/\/capitol.texas.gov\/BillLookup\/History.aspx?LegSess=872&amp;Bill=HB20\">House Bill 20<\/a>, (HB20) was unconstitutional.<\/p>\n<p>The law bans social media platforms like Facebook and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/t-twitter\">Twitter<\/a> from censoring speech based on the user\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/capitol.texas.gov\/tlodocs\/872\/senateamendana\/pdf\/HB00020A.pdf\">viewpoint,<\/a> the viewpoint of another user, or the user\u2019s geographic location in Texas (i.e., users in Austin, which is more liberal, have no better or worse standing than users in the more conservative Texas panhandle.) While the law does not provide for monetary damages, except attorneys\u2019 fees, users who prove they have been censored are entitled to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.law.cornell.edu\/wex\/declaratory_relief#:~:text=Declaratory%20relief%20refers%20to%20a,of%20the%20controversy%20in%20issue.\">declaratory relief\u00a0<\/a>and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.law.cornell.edu\/wex\/injunctive_relief#:~:text=Primary%20tabs,the%20relief%20is%20not%20granted.\">injunctive relief<\/a>. And social\u00a0media platforms that fail to promptly comply with a court order to lift bans on users\u2019 speech can be held in contempt and subject to significant, but unspecified, daily penalties. The law only says the penalties must be \u201csufficient to secure immediate compliance\u201d with the law.<\/p>\n<p>Meta (Facebook), Google, Twitter, et. al., had banded together in a Washington, D.C., industry association called, \u201cNet Choice, LLC\u201d to challenge the Texas law, which was passed last year.<\/p>\n<p>Circuit Judge <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fjc.gov\/history\/judges\/oldham-andrew-stephen\">Andrew S. Oldham<\/a>, a Trump appointee, delivered a stinging rebuke to the NetChoice platforms\u2019 challenge to the Texas law, writing that \u201cthe platforms argue that buried somewhere in the person\u2019s enumerated right to free speech lies a corporation\u2019s unenumerated right to muzzle speech.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe implications of the platforms\u2019 argument are staggering. On the platforms\u2019 view, email providers, mobile phone companies, and banks could cancel the accounts of anyone who sends an email, makes a phone call, or spends money in support of a disfavored political party, candidate, or business. What\u2019s worse, the platforms argue that a business can acquire a dominant market position by holding itself out as open to everyone\u2014as Twitter did in championing<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Commentary A New Orleans federal appellate court for the Fifth Circuit has\u00a0reversed and remanded a lower court decision that held that a Texas law, House Bill 20, (HB20) was unconstitutional. The law bans social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter from censoring speech based on the user\u2019s viewpoint, the viewpoint of another user, or the [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1367,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1647070","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1647070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1367"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1647070"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1647070\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1647070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1647070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1647070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}