“Radical” ruling lets Texas ban social media moderation based on “viewpoint”

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/05/texas-law-banning-social-media-censorship-reinstated-by-appeals-court/

by AdmiralAsshat • 4 years ago

21 18 4 years ago

pessimizer• 4 years ago

This was an inevitability of the right-wing "cancel culture" narrative. If you want to keep people from being fired for being bigots, but you want to protect the right to fire people for any reason at any time, there's nothing you can do other than to make "bigot" a protected class.

I'm waiting for people to self-identify as bigots, or for it to be a choice on the census under race or religion.

quantified2• 4 years ago

You need to be able to teach the other side of the Holocaust somewhere in a free country, right?

williamtwild• 4 years ago

are you being serious?

commandlinefan• 4 years ago

Social media moderators really brought this on themselves.

suture2• 4 years ago

It seems to me to be a strange stance by conservatives. On the one hand they think a business ought to be able to not serve certain protected classes and on the other hand want to be treated like a protected class.

jqpabc1232• 4 years ago

Seems totally illogical doesn't it? Which explains why it makes perfect sense to conservatives.

Avshalom• 4 years ago

An outgroup which laws which bind but do not protect and an in group which the law protects but does not bind.

cato_the_elder2• 4 years ago

Not all conservatives are libertarians.

jqpabc1232• 4 years ago

Can't wait to see how this is applied on "Truth Social".

klyrs3• 4 years ago

Doesn't look like it applies, the law says that social media sites with the most users are common carriers.

weare1382• 4 years ago

Like the article mentions how would they even enforce it though? It's a state law so it would only be enforceable on companies based in Texas or possibly content hosted in Texas and they can't demand information about or regulate users outside of Texas. This will just result in social media companies requiring people from Texas to verify their identities to use their platforms in Texas which I'm sure will go over great with voters in Texas.

weare1382• 4 years ago

If this law gets passed it will backfire spectacularly.

qgin• 4 years ago

Maybe social media companies can declare themselves "religious businesses" and bypass this new regulation since just last year, this happened in Texas:

Federal judge in Texas rules in favor of religious businesses over LGBTQ discrimination claims
A federal judge ruled Sunday that for-profit businesses that have sincerely held religious beliefs do not have to abide by LGBTQ discrimination claims, a blow to the previous ruling in the Supreme Court that protected sexual orientation and gender identity from discrimination, according to The Dallas Morning News.

https://thehill.com/legal/579816-federal-judge-in-texas-rule...

klyrs3• 4 years ago

YouTube got some people pretty hot and bothered when they demonetized some LGBT content because of advertiser preferences. I'm curious to see how that one plays out under this law...

“Radical” ruling lets Texas ban social media moderation based on “viewpoint”

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