U.S. Supreme Court to hear Texas and Florida cases about free speech and social media platforms – Texas Standard

The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments today in two cases related to some of the worlds biggest social media platforms.

Considered by many to be two of the hottest free speech cases of the internet age, one case is from Texas, the other from Florida. And though there are slight differences between the two state laws being challenged here, the cases appear to center on a central question: do social media companies have the right to independently decide what content appears on their platforms, amplifying or removing content as they see fit?

The social media companies say their First Amendment free speech rights are being violated with the Texas and Florida laws. The states say those social media companies arent entitled to First Amendment free speech protection. And it may come down to whether a majority of the court sees social media as more like a newspaper or more like a telephone company.

Charles Rocky Rhodes, a professor of law at South Texas College of Law in Houston, said both of these laws are on hold and have not yet gone into effect because of pending court cases.

They were a response to some of the social media platforms de-platforming Donald Trump and other politicians in the wake of the Jan. 6 riots at the Capitol, Rhodes said. And there was a concern from Texas and from Florida that [these politicians] were being targeted because of their conservative beliefs.

And so the idea of both of these laws was to try to keep social media platforms from banning individuals or discriminating against individuals based on the viewpoints of their speech. And it also placed some very onerous burdens on social media companies with respect to disclosure requirements of their terms and their policies with respect to data management and content, and the use policies that they would be using.

GET MORE NEWS FROM AROUND THE STATE:Sign up for Texas Standards weekly newsletters

The plaintiff in the case is NetChoice, an industry association that includes most of the big platforms we all think of Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), YouTube, etc.

Theyre making the play that when they are deciding which messages to amplify and which messages that they want to remove from their platform, that they are acting as the modern editor of a newspaper, and there are good precedent for the United States Supreme Court saying that a state cant tell a newspaper what to print, Rhodes said.

Theyre arguing that the same principle applies to them, that they are allowed to make editorial decisions on their private platform. And this is something that people have to keep in mind that the social media companies, as big and important as they are, are not the government. They are actually privately-owned.

Texas and Florida, however, say these companies are acting as a common carrier and therefore do not have a claim to free speech.

Theyre trying to say that social media companies are a modern equivalent of what used to be a very familiar idea of the common carrier, that they dont have the ability to discriminate with respect to their service. They have to accept everyone, Rhodes said. And the social media companies come back and say, well, common carriers were different because they never engaged in their own expressive activities.

Common carriers did sometimes transmit the speech of others, like a telegraph would be the old example, or telephone But they did not actually engage in their own expressive activities. And the social media companies are claiming that we do because we are trying to communicate messages. Were creating news feeds for individuals. Were trying to increase, of course, advertising streams that we are engaged in expressive activities in a way that your internet service provider or in a way that your telephone company is not.

As this case goes forward, Rhodes said the states arguments are rooted in political ideology.

The Texas law has a specific exemption for companies under 50 million users. So it wouldnt cover conservative sites like Parler, he said. The Florida law had exemptions for Disney and for Universal that were then taken out once Disney and Universal started criticizing Florida [political leaders]. A big part of the underlying motivation for these laws was the political concern that conservatives thought that their voices were being removed from the site and the marketplace of ideas.

View original post here:

U.S. Supreme Court to hear Texas and Florida cases about free speech and social media platforms - Texas Standard

An Argument for Free Speech, the Lifeblood of Democracy – Tufts Now

You devote the first part of the book to Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. and his journey into skepticism about universal morality. To whom is that relevant today?

Many of todays students have a keen thirst for social justice, which I admire. When Holmes was their age, he shared that thirst, dropping out of college to enlist in the Union Army in a war against slavery, in which he was nearly killed several times.

He became very skeptical of people who believe they have unique access to universal, absolute truth, who view their adversaries as evil incarnate. That, he believed, leads ultimately to violence.

All of us today need to approach public debate with a bit of humility, recognizing that none of us is infallible and that rigid moral certitude leads down a dangerous path.

We know from centuries of experience, in many countries, that censorship inevitably backfires. It discredits the censors, who are seen as patronizing elites. It demeans listeners who are told they cant handle the truth. It makes martyrs and heroes out of the censored and drives their speech underground where its harder to rebut.

Suffragettes, civil rights leaders, and LGBTQ+ activists all have relied on free speech to get their messages out. Censorship alienates the public, generates distrust, fosters social division, and sparks political instability.

Its not that some speech isnt harmfulits that trying to suppress it causes greater harm.

Not all hateful speech is protected. Incitement to violence, fighting words, defamation, and true threats are all often hateful yet that speech is not protected. But other hateful speech is protected, for several reasons.

Hatred is a viewpoint. Its for the individual to think and feel as he or she wishes; its only when the individual crosses the line between thought and action to incite violence or defame or threaten someone that the state can intervene.

Hate speech laws are also invariably vague and overbroad, leading to arbitrary and abusive enforcement. In the real world, speech rarely gets punished because it hurts dominant majorities. It gets punished because it hurts disadvantaged minorities.

The ultimate problem with banning falsehoods is that to do so youd need an official Ministry of Truth, which could come up with an endless list of officially banned falsehoods. Not only would that list inevitably be self-serving, but it could be wrong.

Even when it comes to clear falsehoods, there are reasons to leave them up. [Former President Donald] Trump claimed, for example, that the size of the crowd at his inauguration was larger than [former President Barack] Obamas, which was indisputably false. But the statement had the effect of calling into question not only Trumps veracity but also his mental soundness, which is important for voters to assess.

They were wrong to apply a norm of international human rights law in banning hima supposed prohibition against glorifying violence. Thats a vague, overly broad standard that can pick up everything from praising Medal of Honor winners to producing Top Gun.

Were dealing here with an American president speaking from the White House to the American people, so I say the proper standard should have been the U.S. First Amendment and whether Trump intended to incite imminent violence and whether that violence was likely. Under that test, I think its a close case.

Justice Louis Brandeis [who served on the Supreme Court from 1916 to 1939] said that the fitting remedy for evil counsels is good ones.

If someone counsels drinking bleach to cure COVID, the remedy is not to suppress itits to point out why thats wrong. But over and over, the governments remedy for speech it didnt like was to strongarm social media platforms to take it down.

The government wouldnt have lost so much credibility if it had only said, This is our best guess based on available evidence. Instead, it spoke ex cathedra on masks, lockdowns, school closings, vaccine efficacy, infection rates, myocarditis, social distancing, you name itclaims that often turned out to be untenableand then it bullied the platforms to censor prominent experts who took issue with its misinformation.

The remedy for falsehoods is more speech, not enforced silence. If someone thinks a social media post contains altered imagery or audio, the initial solution is simply to say that and let the marketplace of ideas sort it out.

Obviously counter-speech isnt always the answer: You still run into eleventh-hour deep fakes that theres no time to rebut. People do have privacy rights and interference with elections undercuts democracy.

The trick is to write legislation that catches malign fakery but doesnt also pick up satire and humor that is obviously bogus. Thats not easy. Well-intended but sloppy laws often trigger serious unintended consequences.

See the original post here:

An Argument for Free Speech, the Lifeblood of Democracy - Tufts Now

Supreme Court justices appear skeptical of GOP states in major internet free speech case – Washington Examiner

The Supreme Court appeared skeptical of arguments Monday by the states of Florida and Texas that they are justified in regulating social media content moderation in a landmark case with major implications for speech on the internet.

The court heard oral arguments for two major speech-related cases on Monday: NetChoice v. Moody and NetChoice v. Paxton. The technology industry group NetChoice sued the states of Texas and Florida over laws imposed by Republicans meant to hold social media platforms accountable for banning users based on viewpoint.

Floridas law would allow residents to take legal action and the state to fine companies if they remove political candidates from social media platforms. The Texas law would require platforms to be content-neutral and allow the states attorney general and residents to sue platforms for removing content or blocking accounts. The court pressed the states to provide a justification for restricting speech. The justices, though, also asked questions aimed at determining the extent of Big Techs power over speech on the internet.

NetChoice v. Moody

Florida Solicitor General Henry Whitaker was the first to appear before the court to argue in NetChoice v. Moody. He said that platforms had to be neutral when it comes to content moderation and that the law merely regulates the conduct of a platform rather than the content. He also alleged that platforms such as Facebook and Google need to be treated as common carriers. Being defined as a common carrier, a term initially used for public transportation services and utilities but expanded to include radio stations and telephone services, would subject platforms to additional restrictions, including anti-discrimination regulations.

Multiple members of the court appear skeptical of Floridas law, noting that it was very broad and affected more platforms than some claimed it would. [Floridas law is] covering almost everything, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said. The one thing I know about the internet is that its variety is infinite.

Justice Samuel Alito noted there is also no list of platforms covered by Floridas statutes. This broadness makes it challenging to deal with the cases particulars, Justice Clarence Thomas argued. Were not talking about anything specific, Thomas said. Now were just speculating as to what the law means. The e-commerce platform Etsy was brought up multiple times by the court as an example of a platform that would be inadvertently affected by Floridas law.

Paul Clement, NetChoices representative, responded in his arguments by saying that Floridas law violated the First Amendment multiple times over. He also tried to create a distinction between content moderation decisions made by government entities versus private entities. There are things that if the government does, its a First Amendment problem, and if a private speaker does it, we recognize that as protected activity, Clement argued.

The Biden administrations Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar seemed to affirm Clements arguments, arguing in favor of NetChoice and limiting Floridas power over speech.

Netchoice v. Paxton

The court reconvened a short time after to hear arguments about Texass law. Clement returned to represent NetChoice, arguing that Texass law requiring neutrality on the platform would make social media less attractive to users and advertisers since it would require platforms to host both anti-suicide and pro-suicide content as well as pro-Semitic and antisemitic content.

He also emphasized to the justices that a social media company was more like a parade or newspaper than a common carrier, trying to focus on the state of speech on the platform.

Aaron Nielson, Texass solicitor general, emphasized that social media platforms are a lot like telegraphs and that this nature should be why the state should restrict the sorts of censorship that platforms allow.

Nielson was questioned multiple times about how the state would handle its viewpoint-neutral emphasis. When asked how platforms could regulate viewpoint-neutral approaches to subjects such as terrorism, Nielson said platforms could just remove it. Instead of saying that you can have anti-al Qaeda but not the pro-al Qaeda, if you just want to say, Nobody is talking about al Qaeda here, they can turn that off, Nielson argued.

Court conclusions

The court appeared divided on the extent to which content moderation was allowed. On one hand, they saw government-enforced moderation as questionable, mainly if it focused on content. On the other hand, they criticized the power exerted by Big Tech companies. Justice Neil Gorsuch brought up the example of private messaging services such as Gmail deciding to delete communications due to them violating certain viewpoint communications, a matter that multiple justices brought up before Clement.

The court appeared bothered by the two cases being facial challenges, a legal term for cases in which a party claims that a specific law is unconstitutional and should be voided. This approach offers little flexibility for the Supreme Court since the court could not limit the laws effect to only a specific form of speech but leave other parts of the law intact.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

Section 230, a part of the Communications Decency Act that protects platforms from being held accountable for content posted by third parties, was also brought up by the justices multiple times. The justices tried to weigh how that law would interact with the states attempts to block speech, as well as NetChoices arguments in favor of the platforms. Thomas argued that NetChoices argument that platforms had editorial control undermined its defense under Section 230.

The court is expected to release a decision on both cases sometime before July. The court will only be ruling on the preliminary injunction, which means that the decision will come quicker than other cases and that the decision will decide if the lower courts blocking of the laws will be upheld or overturned.

Read the rest here:

Supreme Court justices appear skeptical of GOP states in major internet free speech case - Washington Examiner

First Amendment claim struck down in Project Veritas case focused on diary of Biden’s daughter – POLITICO

Project Veritas, founded in 2010, identifies itself as a news organization. It is best known for conducting hidden camera stings that have embarrassed news outlets, labor organizations and Democratic politicians.

In written arguments, lawyers for Project Veritas and OKeefe said the governments investigation seems undertaken not to vindicate any real interests of justice, but rather to stifle the press from investigating the Presidents family.

It is impossible to imagine the government investigating an abandoned diary (or perhaps the other belongings left behind with it), had the diary not been written by someone with the last name Biden, they added.

The judge rejected the First Amendment arguments, saying in the ruling that they were inconsistent with Supreme Court precedent. She also noted that Project Veritas could not claim it was protecting the identity of a confidential source from public disclosure after two individuals publicly pleaded guilty in the case.

She was referencing the August 2022 guilty pleas of Aimee Harris and Robert Kurlander to conspiracy to commit interstate transportation of stolen property. Both await sentencing.

The pleas came two years after Harris and Kurlander two Florida residents who are not employed by Project Veritas discovered that Ashley Biden, the presidents daughter, had stored items including a diary at a friends Delray Beach, Florida, house.

They said they initially hoped to sell some of the stolen property to then-President Donald Trumps campaign, but a representative turned them down and told them to take the material to the FBI, prosecutors say.

Eventually, Project Veritas paid the pair $20,000 apiece to deliver the diary containing highly personal entries, a digital storage card with private family photos, tax documents, clothes and luggage to New York, prosecutors said.

Project Veritas was not charged with any crime. The group has said its activities were newsgathering and were ethical and legal.

Two weeks ago, Hannah Giles, chief executive of Project Veritas, quit her job, saying in a social media post she had stepped into an unsalvageable mess one wrought with strong evidence of past illegality and post financial improprieties. She said shed reported what she found to appropriate law enforcement agencies.

Lichtman said in an email on behalf of Project Veritas and the people whose residences were raided: As for the continued investigation, the government isnt seeking any prison time for either defendant who claims to have stolen the Ashley Biden diary, which speaks volumes in our minds.

See the article here:

First Amendment claim struck down in Project Veritas case focused on diary of Biden's daughter - POLITICO

Project Veritas First Amendment | News | thedailyreview.com – Towanda Daily Review

Criminal prosecutors may soon get to see over 900 documents pertaining to the alleged theft of a diary belonging to President Joe Bidens daughter after a judge rejected a First Amendment claim by the conservative nonprofit Project Veritas to stop investigators from seeing the records. The group's attorney says Monday that Project Veritas is considering appealing last week's ruling by Manhattan federal court Judge Analisa Torres. The documents were produced from raids in which electronic devices were also seized from the residences of three members of Project Veritas, including James O'Keefe, the fired founder.

Original post:

Project Veritas First Amendment | News | thedailyreview.com - Towanda Daily Review

Judge Dismisses Project Veritas Claim, Paves Way for Investigation into Alleged Theft of Ashley Biden’s Diary – BNN Breaking

Judge Dismisses Project Veritas Claim, Paves Way for Investigation into Alleged Theft of Ashley Bidens Diary

In a significant turn of events, U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres dismissed a First Amendment claim by the conservative group Project Veritas. This ruling paves the way for over 900 documents related to the alleged theft of President Joe Bidens daughter, Ashleys diary, to be accessible to criminal prosecutors. The documents, obtained from authorized raids in November 2021, can now be handed over to investigators by January 5, 2023.

A group known for its hidden camera stings, Project Veritas has consistently targeted news outlets, labor organizations, and Democratic politicians. In the case at hand, Project Veritas sought to prevent investigators from viewing the records related to Ashley Bidens diary. However, Judge Torress decision has effectively negated this effort, permitting the examination of these documents by the prosecution.

Two individuals, Aimee Harris and Robert Kurlander, have already pleaded guilty to charges associated with the diarys theft and are currently awaiting sentencing. Interestingly, Project Veritas, while heavily involved in the proceedings, was not charged with any crime. The group maintains that its actions were part of legal and ethical newsgathering.

The recent developments in this case also include the resignation of Hannah Giles, the then-chief executive of Project Veritas. Giles stepped down citing evidence of past illegality and financial improprieties within the organization. This move has added yet another layer to the unfolding narrative around Project Veritas and its operations.

See more here:

Judge Dismisses Project Veritas Claim, Paves Way for Investigation into Alleged Theft of Ashley Biden's Diary - BNN Breaking