SCOTUS on Social Media censorship

[Fenixgoon]

So ... The 5th circuit has ruled that website operators of private companies have no 1st amendment rights.

It is difficult to state how completely disconnected from reality this ruling is, and how dangerously incoherent it is. It effectively says that companies no longer have a 1st Amendment right to their own editorial policies.

Considering just how long Republicans (and this judge Oldham was a Republican political operative before being appointed to the bench) have spent insisting that corporations have 1st Amendment rights, this is a major turnaround, and an incomprehensible one.

Judge Oldham:

"We reject the Platforms’ efforts to reframe their censorship as speech. It is undisputed that the Platforms want to eliminate speech—not promote or protect it. And no amount of doctrinal gymnastics can turn the First Amendment’s protections for free speech into protections for free censoring."

That paragraph alone is scary. It basically argues that the state can now compel any speech it wants on private property, as it reinterprets the 1st Amendment to mean that the only thing it limits is the power of the state to remove speech, while leaving open the power of the state to foist speech upon private entities. Fucking ridiculous.

Time to force fox news to carry programming that says trump lost and he's a grifter? 😂

 

[ImpulsE69]

I am curious to see the hilariousness that is going to ensue. This is going to be a popcorn moment.

 

[pmv]

Time to force fox news to carry programming that says trump lost and he's a grifter? 😂

New York Post obliged to carry a regular column by Bernie?

 

[Dave_5k]

Time to force fox news to carry programming that says trump lost and he's a grifter? 😂

Absolutely, by the same logic if you want to make an ad buy that explains how Tucker is a lying fraud acting as a Russian genocide stooge - complete with profanity and direct comparisons to Hitler - airing during his show, Fox would be required to run it.

 

[ivwshane]

How can businesses have no rights (I’m actually not opposed to that) and at the same time say that limiting how much businesses can donate is a violation of their first amendment rights?

If you are going to be an extreme court legislating from the bench, can you at least have the decency to make your rulings sound plausible under scrutiny from the commoners like me?

 

[fskimospy]

How can businesses have no rights (I’m actually not opposed to that) and at the same time say that limiting how much businesses can donate is a violation of their first amendment rights?

If you are going to be an extreme court legislating from the bench, can you at least have the decency to make your rulings sound plausible under scrutiny from the commoners like me?

I’m perfectly fine with the elimination of corporate personhood but yes I would love to have someone articulate a coherent principle where free speech means corporations can donate unlimited funds to politicians but can’t moderate their own websites.

 

[IronWing]

No more bans for mod callouts?

 

[brycejones]

No more bans for mod callouts?

You’re just asking questions….

 

[Fenixgoon]

No more bans for mod callouts?

I'm glad someone here is thinking about the important consequences!!

 

[pmv]

I’m perfectly fine with the elimination of corporate personhood but yes I would love to have someone articulate a coherent principle where free speech means corporations can donate unlimited funds to politicians but can’t moderate their own websites.

If they charged large fees for posts, but gave 100% rebates for posts whose content they considered acceptable, which of those legal logics would that fall under?

 

[fskimospy]

If they charged large fees for posts, but gave 100% rebates for posts whose content they considered acceptable, which of those legal logics would that fall under?

I think people have not internalized how the American legal system is Calvinball now.

 

[fskimospy]

If they charged large fees for posts, but gave 100% rebates for posts whose content they considered acceptable, which of those legal logics would that fall under?

It would be that under the first amendment they can say whatever they want.

 

[NWRMidnight]

I am curious (leaving the 1st amendment/private entity, argument out of the equation): the Republican/conservative argument has been that social media companies need to be held accountable for what is posted on their platform, and they want the laws changed so they can be sued. Yet, this ruling says they can't "censor" what is posted on their platform, so exactly how can they hold them liable for what is posted on their platform if they are not allowed to "censor" it how they see fit?

 

[fskimospy]

I am curious (leaving the 1st amendment/private entity, argument out of the equation): the Republican/conservative argument has been that social media companies need to be held accountable for what is posted on their platform, and they want the laws changed so they can be sued. Yet, this ruling says they can't "censor" what is posted on their platform, so exactly how can they hold them liable for what is posted on their platform if they are not allowed to "censor" it how they see fit?

The answer is they would all close down.

 

[Fenixgoon]

The answer is they would all close down.

Yup, no company would want the legal liability if section 230 came crashing down

 

[Lanyap]

Can we sign up with truth social and create some havoc yet?

 

[tweaker2]

GOP and the sock puppets they control in the legislature and the courts have abandoned any and all pretense that they are being guided by the tenets Our Constitution has laid out for them. They have intentionally crashed through the guardrails that represent the laws of the land and are in defiance of the limitations that the principles of Our Rule of Law once held them to because Our Laws no longer work in their favor.

So any ethical, moral and legal boundaries that obstruct their agenda toward creating a fascist state led by those corrupted oligarchs and their minions are now open season for them to violate at their leisure and they now have those corrupted judges that Trump appointed as hired guns to provide cover for their assault on America under the laughable guise of protecting "their" America from their enemies. I never knew I'd be declared an enemy of the very nation I willingly served while under fire.

W.T.F.

 

[hal2kilo]

Looks like the ban on contacting social media by the Biden admin has been temporarily stayed by SCOTUS.

US Supreme Court temporarily stays restriction on Biden administration’s contact with social media platforms

The US Supreme Court temporarily stayed on Thursday a lower court ruling which would have restricted the Biden administration's ability to encourage social media platforms to remove content it conside...

www.jurist.org