I was put in facebook jail for a week responding to my wife asking me what I wanted to eat that evening... I said "Crazy Mexican"... which is the REAL name of a restaurant by us. I got jailed because of "hate speech". WTF? We were both at work and wondering what to do that evening.
I'd say the choice is pretty clear - delete your FB accounts and problem solved. Don't forget, instagram and a bunch of other properties are all FB too just under different branding.
@@KameraShy You're probably hitting some sort of filter set by the channel owner. Common filter set is anything that has a link in the comment which is why a lot of spambots will put a URL into account names since there's no way to block those on the creator's side. Outside of link blocking, the creator can set up specific words or phrases to automatically block. I'm not sure if youtube has any universal filters for the whole site though.
@@KameraShy Yes, but states still tax it. Federal government regulates the transport while state regulates the sale is the way I understand it. I would have to talk with someone more information tobe sure.
What? Facebook absolutely has a taxable presence in the state of Texas. Facebook has a taxable presence in all 50 states, and all states collect tax from them.
Another point to consider, Steve, is that in a fashion this bill would impact a category of business which is by its very nature interstate commerce. Doesn't the law directly state that interstate commerce is solely the jurisdiction of the federal courts?
California got a waiver for CARB compliance. If this gets struck down it'll demonstrate a clear and obvious double standard. It will utterly shred America's rule of law.
Only affecting companies with more than 50 million users, and population of Texas only being 30 million, it does guarantee, at least, that it could not affect any social media company who only did business inside Texas and only had Texas users.
social media is most definitely interstate commerce, and is most definitely the sole purview of the federal government, which was totally obvious from the beginning, no matter how inept the courts of texas were.
@@DustinRodriguez1_0 State and local governments can always regulate commerce within their state more strictly than it is federally, they simply cannot prevent the federal government from regulating more strictly than they want to. Example: The federal government can make lawn darts legal federally and a state can restrict them. If the federal government bans lawn darts, a state cannot legalize it on behalf of the feds. The feds can still go after lawn dart sellers even if the state doesn't.
States can also regulate something like recorded conversations within their state even if they reach outside their state. The way a company can rectify this is to leave Texas. Then they have no jurisdiction.
Ironically, I think this law would probably have the actual effect of further segmenting people into online "echo chambers" of opinions similar to their own. Thus worsening a different issue with social media on the internet.
The law also touches on property rights. Social media companies are not the government, so censorship actually isn't possible, given the legal definition of censoring. Were the concept expanded, one literally could never throw a guest out of your home during a party for verbally starting altercations.
Not really. Opinions won't be changed by censorship of some ideologies on the likes of Twitter. The splinter groups find other venues for discussions, such as Parler or Rumble. If the major social-media organizations were forced to allow all points of view, then at least all groups would be together under the same "roof." There would be a greater chance that they would actually talk to one another instead of ignoring or insulting each other.
@@joesterling4299 the main thing that stands in the way of that type of thing actually happening is financial viability. The law makers may intend the law to do exactly what you commented. However, if social media companies are subjected to this law and the types of lawsuits it allows against the companies, it will significantly impact the shareholders return on their investment. For this reason every social media company the law could potentially apply too will definitely find ways to skirt the law by pulling out of Texas, removing the ability to comment or provide your opinion at all, making sure they are under the user cap specified in the law, or some other way of skirting the law that involves making rules the users must follow or agree to else they risk getting kicked from the platform. It is not that the users opinions will change. The rules and practices the law gives rise to will likely further fragment users away from larger platforms towards smaller ones they like. Ones that likely share similar opinions to their own. Echo chambers. Also, the internet is host to people from all walks of life. Be it clinically insane, unreasonable, entitled, vulgar, rude, gross, reasonable, normal and many more. Expecting less flame wars on the internet due to this law is about as unreasonable as expecting congress to pass a law cutting their own pay during a boom or bust period of the economy.
@@spvillano 1st amendment free speech censorship isn't possible because the first amendment prevents the government from censoring the people. However censorship is possible and something social media companies can do. Private parties can censor the government or other private citizens if they wish under certain circumstances. Such as for violating their terms of service or rules on what content is allowed to be posted. I dont think this law would apply as far as your example of censorship in private homes though. It only applies to larger social media related companies.
The current situation is that it is already largely an echo chamber, but only for progressives. I'm okay with allowing other echochambers to grow compared to what we have right now. That isn't to say you can't speak at all from the opposing side, but you must tip toe and make every disclaimer to MAYBE not be banned where as if you are part of the right thing you can pretty much call for the murder of all whites or Christians and be given a pat on the back by said social media.
@@stephentthomas in the olden days reading the law and listening to lawyers was enough to allow you to sit for the bar exam. That's pretty much not an option anymore.
@@jupitercyclops6521 To maintain high levels of elitism/prejudice a minimum prover of wealth, breeding, race and class was NOT established, just a requirement that people spend years not making money racking up large bills and hiding in an ivory tower.
The fact that the FCC doesn't currently consider internet service providers as common carriers should be enough to tell them to stuff it. Also, common carrier was always to protect private speech not public.
@@GeorgeWashingtonLaserMusket under Trump ISPs were removed as common carriers regulated under title II. They were only common carriers for a couple years starting in 2015. Prior to that we had content limiting like treating certain data like Netflix from being streamed at full bandwidth. By limiting bandwidth you essentially can prevent viewing certain types of content.
@@tekcomputers imagine for a second if everyone on Twitter had a Dropbox account, and all tweets were stored there. Then Twitter would be a carrier between Tweetbox, the publisher and the reader. This law was always a political circus and could never fly under our legal framework. One solution is to simply boost anti-trust / anti-monopoly laws to break up Facebook Marketplace, Facebook Groups, Facebook Messenger, Whatsapp, Instagram, etc. I'd be okay if TH-cam had Twitter/Reddit/TikTok threads under every video instead of a first party forum.
My understanding is that there is settled supreme court case law that makes it clear that the first amendment prohibits the government (state or federal) from telling private individuals or entities that they must say certain things. How do those precedents not apply in the case of governments forcing social media platforms (which are covered by the first amendment just like anyone else) to put out speech? (in this case speech from specific individuals that said social media platforms do not want to put out the speech of)
It all should fall back to whether the operation is set up as a platform or a publisher. A platform is akin to a phone company not getting involved in what you say compared to someone who is responsible for what is provided to the customer. This distinction needs to be hashed out and enforced.
Yep. "If they refuse to do business in Texas you can sue them." If they decide not to do business in Texas and make it plain and obvious that they are not doing business with the state or its citizens, what right would a Texan have to sue? If a business owner refused to do business on Colorado by saying "it would not be profitable for me to open a franchise for my Tex-Mex restaurant in Colorado", that's perfectly valid and that would be their choice, they aren't obligated to do so any more.
Right now they are impossible to sue as they are allowed to be editorial but are not classified as publishers because they are not considered to be editorial. They have been made immune by intentional acts of executive, legislative and Court action. Never forget the all the people are equal but the corporations are more equal.
MR LEHTO: I want to add a consideration that maybe you can some how pass to the law makers: Now we all need to consider our personal data is being collected and sold, this information about us is our information being used as a payment, thus we are paying for use of the service and thus we all should be aloud our say as we are paying to say it. We should be able to sue for information on who has our data been sold to, for how much it has been sold for and for how long. We should be able to see any profiles made from the data collected and how those profiles are being used to manipulate us in anyway. Even being banned could be seen as a way of manipulating us based on a psychological profile. In the end we are paying for use and in doing so have the right for the use. Another problem is one sided online contract agreements, end users have no way to negotiate user agreements and do not have the money to pay lawyers to explane them to us.
Would this concept also be extended to newspapers? forcing them to print EVERY letter to the editor or else they are suppressing the the readers ideas?
Its not comparable because Twitter has the equivalent of effectively unlimited newspaper pages to publish whereas a newspaper has a limited number of pages it can publish in any one issue.
That’s 2 different things a newspaper is a publisher and can have say in what is shown. Please learn the law and what it says before you believe what any news media says section 230 does not affect newspapers in the way you might think it does
Seems this law collides directly with parts of 47 USC 230, so I’m interested to see at what point we decide that companies are indeed responsible for what they curate and serve to users, as well as what/how they moderate content.
No it does not. Their arguments are not even saying it collided with it. 47 USC 230 just does not hold providers for content which users post. And... "(3) State law Nothing in this section shall be construed to prevent any State from enforcing any State law that is consistent with this section. No cause of action may be brought and no liability may be imposed under any State or local law that is inconsistent with this section." Telling them to not to censor just opposing views is not inconsistent with the section.
@@knerduno5942 That’s the point. The TX law would hold site owners responsible for what they curate and what/how they moderate. 230 says “no,” TX law says “yes.”
@@P_Mann 230 states they cannot be held liable for something a user posts, and they can removed offensive items. A difference of opinion is not offensive. As stated, 230 is not the issue here as it was not even brought up in court..
@@knerduno5942 The laws will come into conflict when someone challenges what a platform decides is offensive as there’s no standard for what “offensive” even means. One person’s offense is another’s free speech and the TX law seems to allow people to sue because they don’t think what they posted is offensive, possibly even if it’s in clear violation of the platform’s TOS.
230 hasn't been argued before the court...because nothing has been argued before the court. It has all been injunctions. So we don't know the argument points yet. Steve even talked about that.
In addition to first amendment issues this law also violates the commerce clause. Social media is clearly a form of interstate commerce. You can't have 50 states writing 50 different sets of regulations, incompatible regulations almost certainly, for Internet companies. That would make it impossible for them to operate. Only Congress has the power to regulate commerce that cross state lines.
@@michaelsommers2356 Your interpretation is seriously lacking. We're not talking about transporting goods from a manufacturer to a customer in a different state. You should read the TOS for the various sites, because they can and do specify where the jurisdiction is for any litigation or arbitration over their services. On that point alone, in fact, the law is unenforceable because every user agrees to and is bound by those TOS, and would be bound to litigate in the location the company chooses, which I can guarantee would NOT be Texas.
The Justices pick and choose what they believe in not law ... show me where in the Constitution it says abortion should be legal or illegal ... or anything about speech on the internet .... or how if we're being honest Thomas or any of female Justices have a right to be a Justice at all based on the original constitution ... 🤔 yet republican claim to be originalists... In reality they're religionlists ruling based on dogma instead of law.... .
@@eriknervik9003 If Drumpf's social media company, Daily Stormer, Gab, Rumble, MeWe, and Parler could get to 50 million, it would apply to them as well.
@@midlander8186 -- The law was written to apply only to those networks that permitted and encouraged social interaction. So Facebook, TH-cam, etc. Broadcast media, streaming services, etc. were specifically excluded.
The fact that the law discriminates between large and small corporations makes it a SCOTUS question regarding equal protection under the law for those various corporate owners.
Without declaring an actual opinion on the social media law, I do have to say that if we’re talking about equal protection for companies based on some sort of size qualification, what about businesses that have to offer healthcare benefits if they’re over x number of full time employees versus those that have less than x number of full time employees?
@@elzar760 This has the same constitutional problem(s). Ultimately, SCOTUS must weigh how severely the law affects individual rights and how many people are affected vs. the overall benefit(s) of the law. SCOTUS will ignore the situation until a relevant case works its way to them through courts and appeals.
@@michaelsommers2356 It's been answered several times, it's not our fault you're unwilling ot read. HB 20, Sec. 143A.002-3. "A social media platform may not censor a user, a user's expression, or a user's ability to receive the expression of another person based on [...] a user's geographic location in this state or any part of this state." This flat out says that the company isn't allowed to decide to pull out of doing business in Texas so it didn't have to comply with this asinine law. Because in order to pull out of doing business in Texas, it would have to block people by the geographic area of the state.
The law makes it a crime to refuse to do business with people residing in Texas. How Texas believes it can require a business in another state to do business in Texas , I don't know.
One benefit of it going through the Texas courts is that it would have to pass muster with both the U.S. Constitution and the State Constitution. If the Texas Supreme Court were to knock down the law, that would knock the wind out of the politicians' sails a bit. It's the difference between an insider that you trust telling you that you made a mistake vs. an outsider telling you. People react differently, even if it is the same message.
And because those servers operate in interstate commerce, it's likely that TX or FL would have limited or no jurisdiction. There are several huge data centers in TX that are owned or leased by the Big 3 social media companies; I wonder if Texas would miss the tax money and jobs should those firms decide to relocate to friendlier states?
You lost me somewhere along there but... I understand these are media platforms. But, so are newspapers, radio, and tv which all have the right to refuse to print or air your words because as private companies they do not fall under the 1st amendment. Newspapers, radio, and tv routinely refuse articles, broadcasts, and even requests for print ads just because they do not agree with the content.
it has to do with the distinction between being a "publisher" or a "free speech" platform. As a free speech platform they are not held liable for the content put out and they get lots of tax breaks. As a publisher they can edit the content, block that content they are not in agreement with, can be held liable for someone acting on the content and are taxed at a standard business rate. Many media platforms want the tax breaks, get the liable protection and still block all content they politically dislike.
Sure there is. Platforms versus providers under section 230. Platforms are not supposed to curate content under section 230. Is social media content being curated? Most people would agree on that. So the question is should they lose the protections under 230 if they are curating. Some of these protections included protection from publishing copyrighted content because a user uploaded it. No social media company could operate without those protections as as soon as someone uploaded a copyrighted work and someone looked at it there would be liability. But how can someone who curates their content be considered a platform under section 230?
@@migolka3799 That's actually wrong. Section 230 came into existence because before that curation meant you could be liable for things posted since people suing the companies could say any curation/moderation means the people running the platforms should have full and complete knowledge of every last thing posted on the platform. Lawmakers saw that as a problem because they wanted to be able to let sites be able to remove objectionable materials like porn (although the 2 underlying cases that brought the issue up were about defamation) thus passed 230 so platforms aren't liable for what users post on their site and it's the person posting it was liable. This gave the platforms the ability to moderate what's posted on there.
@@migolka3799 Like nearly everyone else who manufacturers this fake "Platform vs. provider" or "platform vs. publisher" claim you've conflated Section 230 and the DMCA. Section 230 literally has nothing whatsoever to do with protecting the posting of copyrighted content. It also has absolutely nothing to do with requiring that content be curated "fairly". Section 230 is simply if you are operating an interactive computer service (that is a service that allows users to post content, text, speech, video, etc.), that the service is free to moderate that content, and in doing so said moderation does not make them liable for content which remains unmoderated. Inarguably Section 230 does the exact opposite of what you seem to want to claim it does. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.... are interactice computer services. The "platform"/"publisher" verbage is immaterial to them regarding Section 230. In fact Section 230 declared that the user who posts content on them is the "publisher" as a matter of law. And Section 230 effects that they can moderate the content users "publish" on their interactive computer service without being considered publishers.
Having read the HB20 in full. There are so many issues with the bill, but there are some okay pieces as well. First is that social media companies must have clear terms of use regarding acceptable content, which seems reasonable. The portion which is disturbing is the overly broad 'viewpoint' section. To take an extremes example: Some individuals in the world (including some in Texas) will take the viewpoint that adults engaging in sexual relationships with minors is okay, under this law it seems that they could post that viewpoint to on a facebook profile of a minor person, or on youtube channels targeted at minor persons. In this case youtube or facebook would be unable to act on these messages (ie delete them), as doing so would allow the poster of to sue them. I think we often get caught up conflating the internet to books, newspapers or public squares. . A newspaper or book implies a publisher, a public square implies public ownership of the ground. In reality it is more like a private park on which the public is allowed, and advertisements occur. For example a Church may own a piece of land and allow access to that land (I live by churches where this occurs) or another example an amusement park which has no entry fee, but charges for use of rides etc, a really great example would be a mall... The private owner in that case would be able to have and enforce certain standards, such as no nudity, no hate speech , no harassment of other individuals, no bull horns etc... The over reaching standard would then really be based on a few broad standards 1. The ability of the park owner to generate revenue/income from the park. So that any actions by individuals using the park which the park owner feels may impede this could be asked to depart/banned 2. The general enjoyment of other patrons of the park. This really loops back into 1, if one individuals actions remove the ability of others to enjoy the park, then in that case the owner is less likely to generate revenue/income due to lower use of the park. 3. Any other reasonable standards which the owner cares to facilitate as long as they do not violate federal law regarding protected classes (IE cannot ban people due to race/sex etc..). When looking at websites not as publishers, or public squares but commercial areas which individuals are allowed to be/make use of there are a few different Supreme Court Cases which could give guidance, as well as some state level court cases. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pruneyard_Shopping_Center_v._Robins is one such case. Though the other other subsequent cases have clarified the position by expanding or narrowing the scope. Be careful in reading though as the main holding of this case applies only to California.
The Internet is today’s town square. Rights are meaningless if a business can effectively take them away with their terms of service. Private entities are already forced to offer equal prices and terms to everyone when they have any kind of monopoly under RAND.
It is odd how people have to think about the interwebs. They think they have a right to it and forget it is a place of rules no matter how arbitrary they may be. You explain it very well.
I like the mall analogy, Mikeyboy. All of this tends to become convoluted for a former 11B Mech grunt/current telco worker like me - the use of figurative language serves to clarify it considerably. Well done.
Steve, in Texas there are two separate "supreme" courts for appeal. In civil matters the highest court of appeal is the Texas Supreme Court. The highest court for criminal matters is the Texas Court Of Criminal Appeals. BTW, both courts are elected as are most judges in Texas.
What I want to know is how was this law denying corporations their "freedom of speech", where you could argue that 1984Tube placing a "context" disclaimer on certain videos is within the bounds of "free speech", however, corporations *denying* speech from certain quarters is nothing to do with "free speech", but _everything_ to do with *censorship* !
@@danny8bit numerous things are not allowed under free speech. Incitement, child porn, terroristic threats, etc. The texas law wants to make racism, bigotry and bullying protected speech.
@@lrmackmcbride7498 racism bigotry and bullying are constitutionaly protected free speech if you are face to face with the person. Why should the internet be more restricted?
So, the big tech companies are fighting this on the basis that it interferes with their editorial decisions? Wouldn't exercising editorial control make them a publisher in the eyes of section 230?
Exactly, but They want the best of both worlds. They want the pwr of publisher without liability They have the $ & power & they are in bed with gov so that's what they get, until we take the power back
You actually have this in reverse. Section 230 is the thing that allows them to have editorial control as you call it. Before section 230, a forum that moderated themselves were found liable for defamation because of what was a user posted there because they legally would have had knowledge of the defamation on their site while another forum got away with it because they did 0 moderation and were found to have no knowledge thus only the person posting it would have been legally liable. Lawmakers found this to be a problem because what if someone posted porn and there was no way for the site to get rid of it without opening themselves up to legal liability? Section 230 then came into existence to allow sites to let users post whatever they want and the sites to get rid of the bad things their users post without legal liability.
The stay needed to happen because the amount of damage that could be caused to the companies while cases worked their way through state courts (which would have to happen before the SCOTUS could weigh in) would be catastrophic.
Catastrophic destruction to Facebook. TH-cam, Twitter, Instagram, etc. Would not be a problem as these entities are acting as common carriers and at the same time refusing to enforce First Amendment rights.
@@cliftonmcnalley8469 -- right, here's my thumb and index finger rubbing together, playing the world's smallest violin for the plight of the poor social media companies.
I mean, SCOTUS could choose to hear it on an emergency basis, but they seem to like not doing their jobs and just putting everything on a shadow docket where they don't have to explain anything.
@@TheRealScooterGuy I do not see how a state can mandate a company do business in their state! That was the part of the law I saw as the biggest over reach!
@@nickybeingnicky I mean to protect that as a favored website, a threshold of 2.1 million would do. Or if they wanted to allow for growth 5 million tops.
@@PvblivsAelivs or set the bar at a number that would be a percentage of voters nationally that could actually swing an election? You don't think 2 steps ahead.
Please do. Then our youth would become instantly more productive human beings… true social skills would develop, conceptual thinking would re-emerge, and our employment numbers would shoot up.
@@trarock24 it would also make them froth at the mouth and claim that they were being oppressed and that they were not being treated fairly by the evil lefties. I just think it’s hilarious to harass them simply because they’re Texans and Floridians.
This brings up the Federal Law that gives 'Cover' to Social Media Companies, such as Facebook, You-Tube, and Twitter....about whether Social Media Companies are a 'Publisher' or an 'Editor'. Social Media Companies are NOT 'Liable' for the Content for 'Publishing' it, but are NOT covered if they are an 'Editor'. (Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996) These Social Media Companies continuously switch between the 'Publisher' and 'Editor' Roles, and claim they are Covered when they remove similar content, but one is from a POV from a Conservative (which they Remove) and one from a Liberal (which they allow to stay)....yet this is an 'Editor' function NOT a 'Publisher' Function.
so i'm not privy to the words used in section 230 of said act since i am a canadian and don't really need to know said law. i once heard it was the difference between being a publisher and a platform but now you are saying it's the difference between being an editor and a publisher. i however do know that what you are saying is correct. they are in fact using this act to protect themselves while actively breaking the terms that gives them said protection.
You are ignore CompuServe law suits . It was that law suit that allows web sites to moderate content. You are also missing the point of section 230 . It was so that website could moderate > (c) Protection for “Good Samaritan” blocking and screening of offensive material
Utter bunk. Pretend I'm a publisher, say books. You come to me with your book about The White Replacement Theory. I think your book is stupid so I decade to not publish it. That doesn't make me an editor. Conservatives scream about social media companies censoring them yet when other options are available they always come back. Why? Parler exists, why would you want to use Twitter if they censor you? Why would you use TH-cam if BitChute exists? The answer is that Twitter and TH-cam aren't actually censoring people because they're Conservative. I used to get so many Fox and PragerU videos in my recommended feed after watching one of Steve's videos I had to manually tell TH-cam to STOP sending me Conservative content.
@@WellnessWizdom Unfortunately a lot of people haven't read section 230 and don't understand what it actually does. It's been turned into a boogeyman that is responsible for all the things they don't like on the internet, even though it's the only linchpin that gives them an internet voice in the first place.
In the past it seemed that such a suit would be dismissed for two reasons. First, a lack of standing. No party has had the law directly affect them. Second, the law hasn’t been applied. There are no clients.
@@n1gak The suit is brought by a collection of parties the law would impact, as a preliminary injunction against the law being applied in the first place; a preliminary injunction is called "extraordinary" for a reason. Suing the government is a little different than suing a private entity in that regard.
The social-media sites have standing. If the law goes into effect, they will have to spend lots of money complying with its requirements. Things like setting up the complaint-handling procedures, and the required reports. They don't have to wait to be sued under the law to be affected by it.
@@michaelsommers2356 I'm out having a hard time understanding this whole conversation I'm not a very smart man. But California emission laws affected the whole automotive industry
@@patrickdecambra2219 in general, automotive companies are not too opposed to mildly more stringent emissions laws. In their own interest, these laws raise the barrier to entry and help justify the large teams that are already needed to create all the machinery that goes into a car. These laws are also factored into the automakers timelines ahead of time. If these laws were taken off the books tomorrow, it would cause a massive panic, at least in a time where cars are not in short supply. Companies would need to remove all the expensive technology for emissions from the car to stay price competitive.
If this actually gets allowed, it would have been nice if instead of just social media companies, it applied to everyone in the chain, ISPs, distributors ect, because this is effectively net neutrality with the very limited scope of content posted by end users and only if the original distributor blocks, throttles, or removes it. Its just so odd that texas faught against net neutrality, but they want this.
Net neutrality sounds nice in theory, but in reality prevents ISPs for charging more for access to, say, the Philippines. Which is of course what radical groups would allege against any ISP which didn't perform takedowns on media they dislike. Even if fines are not levied it still causes endless costs and litigation. So it gives radical groups a way to levy unofficial penalties. This law is very much like net neutrality - except Texas is the one in control. So they got rid of someone elses' political weapon and now want to create their own. Complex yet simple.
because our legislators generally have no idea on the technical or culture intricacies of modern technology. They rely on lobbyists to tell them the details, and depending on the lobbyist could be a boldfaced lie or a horrifically twisted interpretation. Many of the right to repair bills over the last couple of years were struck down because they relied on apple and other industry lobbyists to tell them the impact of what right to repair would do and they straight up fabricated and lied through their teeth.
@@Mavendow net nutrality is to prevent ISPs from throttling companies or individuals who dont subscribe to the ISP's services, or slow down services that compete with the ISP's services(or charging them more just because they're competition), it has nothing to do with a companies political belief system its about preventing anti-capitalistic behavior with the psuedo extortion ISPs use on their customers. Edit, i'm not agreeing with the law, i'm just saying that it would be nice if the law included something positive
I know this comment is a year old, but here's a question. Why would unruly conduct online be allowable, but not in person. If I go into a bank and start yelling at people, preventing them from having their peace, I'd have the police called on me and be removed from the space. The same idea goes if I write a program to spam a content creator's platform with comments, now I can't be removed from that space. Now content creators in that situation would have no community, because no one would be able to see anything other than whatever nonsense I write to clog up the pipes, so to speak.
@@JosefDerKaiser Who defines unruly is the question Is championing LGBTQ rights unruly Is championing body autonomy and personal autonomy unruly Is championing the second amendment unruly I dont like echo chambers because that's how we end up with totalitarian groups in power. Sure these are private companies But try to find a public one They dont exist because they're not allowed to exist. Imagine the only place you were allowed to speak, were in a park with a public speaking permit and not online, because the people who run these sites, or your ISP, or your web browser, or your OS, disagree with you Take the thing you're most passionate about, and imagine a world where the only place you're allowed to talk about it is in person and on public land.
Social Media, under consumer protection, should be forced to have transparent censorship of their platform. That's all I want. No first amendment violations, just that companies should have to be straight with its users and not lie or obfuscate their contract and the policies they enforce on the users.
Sounds nice. (And I run a group on FB that points out some of the weird things they do, with examples.) The problem is that social media companies are using AI to make decisions, and the AI sometimes gets it wrong. If someone is harassing another person, nobody really has an objection to it being removed. But when someone says something like, "Nominate Anita Hill for the current vacancy, and Clarence Thomas will likely have a coronary," and the AI tags that as harassment, people get pretty upset. This example is real, btw. It's my own experience with Twitter. Happened last January and I've been in Twitter-jail ever since.
Amazing how the corporations as people get expedited access to SCOTUS while ordinary people would have had to wait many more years to get to this point. It is also amazing how a corporation can get standing where ordinary people would not. By the corporations, of the corporations and for the corporations.
👍 that's the same logic that says everyone saw what happened surely someone else must have already called 911 so I don't need to... that's why I can feel free to film it with my phone for social media. 🤳
@@copcuffs9973 Well, the same logic, but hardly the same stakes or moral obligation. Kitty Genovese’s life is not hanging on whether Steve misses a story. (As Phil Ochs’ classic, “Outside of a Small Circle of Friends” plays in my head.)
What I didn't understand was how the Court of Appeals isn't required to give reasons why they did what they did? The only people that shouldn't have to tell you "'why" are your parents! The 'Cuz we said so!' ruling is inherently unjust any time it's applied (unless it's to a 3 year old asking 'Why' for the millionth time that day)!It basically means 'our reasons are too complicated and too numerous to explain' when used with a child. When used in a Court of Law it now sounds like, "Because we have the power to do whatever we want!" That sounds dangerous.
It seems that directing it at the large social media outlets only, frees up the the fringe perhaps extremest sites to exclude counter arguments and avoid being neutral.
It's a standard GOP carve out law. When politicians wanted to tax universities, they based the cutoff on who would be taxed on the endowment size of the targeted universities.
Is this the same SCOTUS that took away prisoner's rights to appeal because it would be a waste of judicial resources to have all that litigation that's going to fail in the end?
They basically said "it's not the job of appellate courts to be finders of fact, but to review the process by which the verdict was found". IOW, you can prove your innocence beyond a reasonable doubt by the time your case goes to appeal, but the appeals court cannot take your factual innocence into account.
@@raygunsforronnie847 "but the appeals court cannot take your factual innocence into account." How that doesn't immediately incense everyone is beyond me.
Steve, Like you, I can see both sides of the SCOTUS decision. In the Prima Facie it would constitute an intrusion by a government into the ability of free speech. And that while there is precedent for some types of restrictions to be considered, the specifications trying to be enacted would be overwhelmingly reactive. So to be considered by SCOTUS, the matter would need to encompass the algorithmic programming that most social media sites use for their comments section. Such Algorithms are the first point of contact between an OP and a social media site. Be it a presentation site such as You Tube, or the various levels of what can be described as the soapbox sites. Such as Facebook. Or even business networking sites. There are probably millions of instances where algorithms have caused inputs into the site to be rejected but without a means for the users to refute such rejections. These would be the types of cases that could be heard and even that might become overwhelming to any State court.
There are plenty of instances where I've told guests in my house to stop speech that would've started a fight with other guests. Texas would hold that I'd have to allow things to devolve into a fight and I suffer the damages of a fight within my own home, as I'd not have the right to halt things before damage from fighting occurred and the troublemaker could sue if I even tried. I have property rights, so do social media companies.
@@spvillano, While I agree that there are many social media trolls that only want to have a public fight and it would be nice to have social media companies rectify such behavior, the main difference between social media and one’s home is substantially different. In your home ,yes you are responsible to try to avoid violent confrontation.sometimes it is possible, other times not. At least on social media, despite provocation, you can just not respond to such trolling. It is mo5 the responsibility of such companies to intervene except where obvious degradations of confrontation of any type become apparent. As with language however, an algorithm cannot distinguish context. There are instances of what has been defined to the algorithm as hate language that in a different context is and must be completely acceptable. In the comments there was such an example. And I have myself needed to report.a networking site over it’s algorithm when I used the title of a play registered with the Library if Congress, and that my inclusion on my resume along with others, would be acceptable to a reputable African American producer, and in no way in the context could it be considered offensive. For some of the sites I have contributed to, I have gained various forms of detractors. Such as some of the mathematics problems that include multiplying an integer by 0. while the rules taught by math teachers is that 5he answer is 0, that answer us in defiance of reality. Through example I have asked that if they were told that their income would be multiplied by 0, would they still receive their current income, or would they be working for nothing. I have bern calked many things ,however the logic of my example is sound. And was used to prove that Zero cannot be a multiplier and what is being taught is incorrect. I do not respond to such provocations Usually to me it means that some way I have upset the way someone has bern inculcated to think. I do not make statements simply to provoke a particular attitude however, so many subjects have been “ Hot Button” controversial subjects that only with independent 5ought and reasoning, can some grasp what I state. In the past year and a half, most social media sites have made a concerted effort to render truly hate and violence provoking content to be eliminated. Usually by revoking the individuals ability to participate on their sites. If their comments do not get included in rational discussions, it can be considered in the manner that Billy Joel used in one of his lyrics. “ And you can speak your mind, but not on my time”.
Without going through nearly 1000 comments, has anyone noted that the root of all this was Twitter and Facebook kicking Trump off their platforms for repeatedly violating Terms of Service, that the whole point is to benefit him?
They have broken plenty of criminal laws they should be prosecuted for instead of this way. I for one just recently got a nice check from them for one they got sued over.
So in a case like this, does the attorney's 1/3 get calculated before or after their double attorney fees gets paid? i.e. $5k in attorneys fees (doubled to $10k) and a $10k award would be a judgement of $20k. Would the attorney get $13,333 or $16,666?
When a citizen writes a comment to a newspaper, there is no guarantee that it will be published, and no expectation that it will be. And there is no requirement that the newspaper publish the comment. AND, news organizations since day one have the right to edit what they publish. This of course is somewhat shaping public information & thought. The argument is then proposed that the commenter can get the comment published at any number of other outlets. All this is exactly analogous to digital media platforms. Let's put it this way--- Fox News and CNN definitely edit their published output to influence public thought & opinion, and no court is suggesting they can't. Sadly. The important difference between news organizations and social media platforms, is that IT USED TO BE that news organizations did some careful journalistic research into the issue at hand, and people respected their editing because of that. Now, of course, neither John & Jane Doe on social media, nor the news organizations, do any research. But instead of the public understanding that and treating both platforms as barely worth 5 cents, we unfortunately have a population who does the opposite--- "It's all true, because I saw it in print or on TV".
If the law gets into effect without change, would it not be advisable for any big media company to just terminate their contract with users of which they see the risk of litigation, e.g. just throwing out all potentially litigatious users?
@@gorak9000 Alternatively, split into lots of companies with 49,999,999 users, which use compatible platforms or even a common carrier, thus for the user, the experience is smooth as if everyone was on the same social network. For instance, there is Mastodon, which consists of ~28,000 different servers operated by different people, but provides the same functionality as Twitter.
I have a very hard time imagining that they would let it take effect while working it's way through the courts. But if they did, then most likely what would happen, while the primary points of the law are being hashed out, is that they would disable the disputed features based on geolocation data. That's what happens with the cookie consent banners California (and the EU) requires. Anyone from those places sees a cookie consent banner on nearly every single web site they go to. Most others only see them rarely, because many companies had to invest in using geolocation so as not to offend their customers everywhere else with the annoying government nanny messages. (Neither here nor there, but it's ironic that the cookie consent laws were for "privacy" but forced companies to actually pay a 3rd party for more personalized data in order to comply.)
@@mikecamdena I think the cookie notifications are more than government nannying. In this case I think it's more that companies wanted to not have to disclose how much information they're retaining (or to do so much more obtusely), and preferred to air on the side of less transparency. You have to remember that the vast majority of people, and especially young people today, are quite computer illiterate. Most of them don't have any knowledge of how cookies and such things work. The problem is a lot of people assume that just because people today can use apps on a phone, that they have basic computer skills, which they do not.
All users from Texas should be subject to complete bans from posting on the social media platforms so that any deletion of messages for misinformation won’t be required. If they post, all posts should be deleted. You have read privileges but not write privileges.Rewrite the terms of service so that residents of any state who has this type of law have no rights to post.
Add to the AUP/TOS: "All users residing in, or connecting to The Service via any point of access or infrastructure in the State of Texas specifically waive all rights under TX HB20 and agree to hold harmless The Service and indemnify The Service against any and all claims related thereto." Think about that bit of sweeping wordage... "Your IP address resolves within the state of Texas, please agree to the Terms above to initiate or continue your use of The Service." "A trace-route shows your connection to The Service passes through internet backbone in Texas, please agree to the Terms above to initiate or continue your use of The Service."
"All users from Texas should be subject to complete bans from posting on the social media platforms so that any deletion of messages for misinformation won’t be required. If they post, all posts should be deleted. You have read privileges but not write privileges.Rewrite the terms of service so that residents of any state who has this type of law have no rights to post." Congratulations. Many people are interpreting a provision in the bill to mean companies "have" to do business in Texas. In reality, the provision just means they can't do what you described.
Look at the laws from the 1800s they were not made for companies but mostly for farmers and other people who held property. Still not for the general citizen but how they defined citizen and what was a voting citizen was different.
They should argue against this under the interstate commerce clause. Texas does not have 50 million people. The population of Texas is closer to 30 million. So Texas absolutely must be attempting to involve residents of other states in Texas law. That is the realm of the federal government and not under the purview of the a state.
You confused me with "Mr T" - I thought the former boxer and actor had started a social media platform. Then I remembered that Orange Julius Caeser's last name also starts with a T.
There are a lot of issue here. One is whether there is a qualitative difference between a "supersized" Social Media Outlet and a smaller sized entity. Also, this is another case where the 14th Amendment is used to apply the 1st Amendment to the operations of the individual states. (The1st reads: "Congress shall make no law ....")
"Texas should not have to seek preclearance from the federal courts before it's laws go into effect...", given the laws passed by texas recently....that's exactly what's going to need to happen.
And to be inarguable as these law firmly makes an afront to interstate commerce and the right of a business to decide where it wants to operate, such sits squarly in federal court.
Seriously. The crap they're pulling ought to be slapped down before it ever sees the light of day, especially when it is THAT blatantly unconstitutional. I mean, do YOU want to be the first teacher who gets sued for daring to say that racism exists? Or for having books that include non-straight, non-white authors in your library? Far better you never have to face that because that law never came into effect in the first place.
It 's pretty simple. Anyone who's not unusually stupid should recognize that the right to free speech generally doesn't mean that others have to help promote or distribute that speech.
That's true. A site like TH-cam doesn't have to exist at all. However, TH-cam has decided to promote and distribute third-party speech. It is not unreasonable to say that if it distributes third-party speech then it cannot block speech contrary to its political agenda.
@@WellnessWizdom The people advocating for these laws are generally morons who either haven't thought things through or hoe to avoid imposing the law on the people who share their views. I expect that part of the reason for the 50 million users threshold is that they're both trying to attack the large companies and also protect things like conservative and religious forums. Local churches definitely don't have that many users, but if there's some more generalized religious site it might become fair game.
I noted in some other video that the threshold is a monetary gross profit of, (I think,) $100Mil annually. Since Truth Social probably isn't ever going to be profitable, they are safe from this legislation, but all of Trump's competition are not. I'm not actually accusing the Texas legislature and Gov. Abbot of writing laws to help the GOP, and especially Trump, but it sure smells that way. I'd love to hear opinions about this either way. (Please keep it clean, I want to really discuss this, not flame each other.)
@@williamwinder5011 its already happened. Roe v wade, they all promised under oath to respect precedent and wouldn't change that precedent. As soon as they got the votes, these religious nutbags who got confirmed by a bias right wing extremist movement all committed fraud to get a job, perjured themselves, and ignored all precedent cases that confirm roe v wade. Time for term limits, the right wing has destroyed that part of our democracy in their attempt to destroy all democracy ever since we had a black guy as president.
It's going to be extremely hard if not impossible for companies to prove that certain content isn't being suppressed. These decisions are made by algorithms that are often impossible to dissect in a way humans can understand, let alone judges that think TH-cam is an ISP.
@@108gk sometimes. But some of the really good ones are written by programs that people write and when that happens it can be hard to understand what's going on inside it. Both CGP Grey and Tom Scott have done videos on the topic that help break it down.
The bigger question is "does any governmental entity have the right to *compel* content that the owners/managers of private property disagree with? The newspaper is not obligated by law to publish your letter to the editor, for example, because the newspaper is ultimately a private enterprise.
I freely admit I may be missing something and this could be a slippery slope argument but couldn't this lead to other states passing additional politically driven laws that target big companies in other, politically opposed, states? Hypothetical example: Texas Co. won't do business with people that insult the Christian church. If you can be shown to have insulted the church they will refuse to serve you regardless of where you live. They provide a unique service that would be difficult or impossible to obtain from another company. New York then passes a law that says if any company refuses to serve you based on religious criticism then you can sue them and if you win you get a minimum of a billion dollars and your lawyers take possession of half to offending companies assets. If you lose you still get a million dollars and your lawyers can charge 10x their normal rate. AND if the offending company ever did business in New York it makes them open for this lawsuit forever. I know this is outrageous so please focus on the spirit of the example and not try to argue against the made up circumstances.
If you are a business and publicly put out that statement then it is fully part of your business practice. When your business gets tax breaks and protect from liability because you claim to be a "Free Speech platform" then you deny speech you politically disagree with you are wanting to be in 2 camps at the same time getting the best of both and none of the liabilities of either. They can not have it both ways.
It was a 5-4 ruling, But it’s really a 6-3 ruling because Kagan ABSOLUTELY HATES the “shadow docket” If it was 4-4 she’d have joined the group to hold it
Does applying that law to only large websites give an advantage to their smaller competitors? Yes. Should we be aggressively trust busting those same large websites? Also yes. When social media corporations become large enough they more than other corporations which already have far too much political influence due to Citizens United become able to exert extreme influence on public opinion. Regardless of political affiliation that is something you should be concerned about and the public needs to start pressuring their reps to address this. This particular law is... not very good. Others have pointed out that it tries to require businesses to do business in Texas and other bizarre things about it. I do think it addresses an important problem though.
Large social media platforms are just easier to find. A platform could grow quickly and within 1 year have to totally change the way it operates from the star. Maybe users like something but as soon as they hit 50 million...in the nation not the state which the law is is in...the site policies have to change? Is that fair to the company and the users who like it the way it is
Yeah they want it both ways because they just want what they want and they don't care when they're being hypocritical about another decision. Just hypocrites trying to throw a temper tantrum
Social media companies are publishers, but with very little in the way of editing. This bill seeks not only to remove what little editing they are doing, but on top of that, force them to publish all content no matter how offensive, damaging, or just outright dangerous. Moreover, even if they were to publish literally all content posted to their sites, they could still be sued by vexatious litigants or victims of the very misinformation they were trying to prevent. Looking back, newspapers and their editorial process is what kept the John Birch Society at bay for 50 years. Now that they're gone, and there are no editors, we're pretty much screwed, because people not involved in journalism or research, no matter what political inclination they may have, tend to be pretty terrible at "doing their own research".
I don't see how this case even made it this high. I could see if those sites kicked off all of the people in one group. You can still find millions of both sides voicing their opinions on these sites.
@@mrtechie6810 I doubt they are censoring regular political speech, probably hate speech added into it, but these companies are not governmental owned companies and have their own rights. If these sites were owned by the government then it would matter.
The problem with this law too is it could allow Texans to potentially sue non-Texans (Facebook, Twitter, and TH-cam have their headquarters in California) for statements or comments made by someone not from Texas ( I don't live in Texas and Steve Lehto is from Michigan) on comments from someone in Texas. The fun of dealing with laws for those in or out of your jurisdiction. I don't know enough about jurisdiction laws to know if I'm right but it does seem to have more of a federal impact than necessarily a state impact.
If a company does business in the great State of X, then it is subject to the laws of the great State of X, at least as far as its dealings in that state go. That is nothing new.
@@michaelsommers2356 I as a commenter living outside of Texas do not make money in Texas. So what legal rights do they have to impede upon my legal rights for the state to which I live?
Assuming this laws stays, the Texas entity could sue the platform. It would not impact you directly although it would cause a lot of liability for many tools on social platforms to remain the way they are.
Didn't the law also include a provision that it was illegal to stop doing business in Texas? Which is simply nuts. "You have to follow this law to do business in our state, and you're also compelled to do business in our state."
Alito is being disingenuous. He (and some of his fellow conservatives) wanted the companies to go through all the pain of conforming to the law while it plays out in court, so he's constructed an excuse.
Every state has unusual laws. Texas and Florida have NEW laws targeting a NEW problem which must be addressed… so these particular laws aren’t unusual rather just laws which have not been argued so there isn’t a basis for opinion at this time.
@@trarock24 What is the new problem? Hugely rich companies playing the 600 lb gorilla, messing with the health and safety of the public goes back a long way, easily predating the industrial revolution.
@@svn5994 disagree… not bs. There are issues and this being the initial movement to address them is always contentious…. In the end the outcome will be valued by all of us. Be happy someone has the intestinal fortitude to stand up for the Constitutional rights for us all.
That law, or at least some form of it, should be a federal law. There are precedents of privately owned public spaces where the 1st amendment is protected, and this is analogous to it.
If in the scotus dissent opinion you replaced “social media” with “newspaper”, for example, what does that imply. Ir how is this different from prior cases of some new form of opinion distribution and reporting in society that makes it special? Agreed on the problem with why only above a certain size? It’s either do or no-do; the size of the media company should not matter. Basing on size seems to be an equal protection problem.
So many laws are based off the size of the business. Alot of fines the government gives are based off the size of business, so they don't put the small people out of business, and they assume the big businesses have more people to do more
@@MelissiaBlackheart I suspect it’s more to remove the burden from the small websites. Imagine every 300 user hobby website with a discussion board having to implemented all of this overhead and appeals process. A one man website doesn’t have a staff. Even municipal websites and town halls don’t have the budget to support some of this. Thus the exclusion. But it does feel wrong I’m that it suggests dishonesty is ok so long as it’s in small doses.
@@Mortvent Newspapers actively choose what gets printed. Social media provides a platform for others to publish. The two are not the same. Now, swap that out with "news channels" and see what protections spring up.
It's a lot harder than you think, when the majority of people use the main social media platforms. Most people either do not know about these smaller social media platforms, or don't want to use them because everyone is not on them. This is where you miss the point. I understand your legal stance as a lawyer, but from a social stance you are completely missing the point.
@@SakuraNyan 12:26 It was a 5-4 decision to put a hold on it. "Justice Elena Kagan joined conservatives Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch in dissent."
Soooo. . . if someone advocates some behavior that is clearly socially unacceptable, or even just unacceptable to the members of the SCOTUS (for the sake of decency I refrain from giving examples here), and TH-cam deletes it, I can sue? Even if I a advocating a horrendous crime? That doesn't make any sense at all.
Viewpoints is not a protected class. There’s no merit to this at all. Companies are absolutely allowed to discriminate against any viewpoint they wish. You have no 1st amendment rights where private individuals or companies are concerned. This is absolute lunacy.
I usually agree with you,but not on this one. I believe that one appointed judge should not have more power than an elected legislator. The law should be in effect until it is proven unconstitutional. Social media giants will figure out and adjust until a final resolution. Thanks for the content!
The part I have a problem with is the clause that requires the business to do operate in Texas. Texas can’t require businesses to operate in Tx and be subject to this law even if the business doesn’t want to operate there. I don’t want to operate in CA and don’t want them to pass a law that requires me to operate there and be subject to their kooky laws.
Most sites have particular statements in their terms of service limiting which jurisdictions apply for filing cases and construing terminology. Wouldn't trying to file a case in TX if the tou says CA law is binding be grounds for automatic dismissal, without having to disprove any allegations, because they're not filing in the proper court?
Equally scary is the fact that the state feels that they had to attempt to make such a law. Big business and the government have been getting into way too cozy of a relationship lately.
Yeah but look at the other b******* that the supreme Court is doing right now. They literally just stripped away the sixth amendment by saying that you don't have to pay attention to evidence after a verdict has been decided.
@@texasforever7887 except for their very selective on what big businesses are going to allow to do whatever they want. They don't like the media businesses saying that they can't promote dangerous talking points but they'll let other businesses completely take advantage of people living in the states. And for crying out loud make up your mind do you like free markets or not?
The law is reasonable. There was no basis for a stay. Companies are being classified as common carriers, no one is infringing on the speech of the companies, merely their biased censorship of users.
Which circuit is overturned more often, the Fifth Circuit or the Month Circuit? Someone I swear they've got an ongoing competition to see who can be overturned more
Interesting that neither SCOTUS dissenting opinion nor you mention what I see the crucial strength of the TX law in question: "Common Carrier" designation. The base of this law in my opinion is sound, how do we define common carrier in this new age? - well, if you serve 50+MILLION, that is quite a common service and it, by the very nature involves self-expression in public forum, which should be protected.
This has already been litigated in the 1980's and 1990's in the context of malls being town squares. Mall owners are private companies not unlike Twitter and Facebook. The owners have the right to decide who can be on their properties and whether to deny entry to some patrons who might be a threat to others while visiting or simply deny entry based on clothing or political messages. There are other venues to spread hate speech, xenophobia and other Republican rhetoric, so it's not like the people of Texas don't have options. Republicans used to be all about small government but the Texas law is extremely egregious.
Discrimination based on political affiliation and or position is really the underlying issue. Texas and Florida's approach is farcical and will never pass scrutiny. They need to narrow the net.
That comment about the law interfering with their desire for an editorial role sounds to me like an open admission they don't wish to have Section 230 protection as a platform then.
@@gene8172 Section 230 protects Facebook, Twitter, etc from being legally libel for content on their service if they act as a platform. When they act in a manner to act as an editor outside of actual illegal conduct they lose 230 protection. Back in the dial up days you had AOL and Prodigy as the two big Facebooks of their day. AOL took the anything goes if it's not illegal while Prodigy took to appointing themselves as monitors to regulate speech on their platform and eventually several cases where legally actionable content got through and Prodigy was held responsible as by removing objectionable but legal content they established themselves as editors like a newspaper rather than a platform like the phone company. The last 5 or 6 years in particular big tech has played both sides wanting the best of both worlds by being a platform when it suits them and expressing editorial control when the content was deemed wrong think.
Any judge who was involved in the approval of this 'law' in the first place, should be disbarred for clear incompetence. How can the US have judges who make unconstitutional rulings ?
I was put in facebook jail for a week responding to my wife asking me what I wanted to eat that evening... I said "Crazy Mexican"... which is the REAL name of a restaurant by us. I got jailed because of "hate speech". WTF? We were both at work and wondering what to do that evening.
Why don't you just text each other ? FB is so bad I left it
They call it racist to call neo nazis and other white supremacists wh!te tr@sh.
I'd say the choice is pretty clear - delete your FB accounts and problem solved. Don't forget, instagram and a bunch of other properties are all FB too just under different branding.
@@KameraShy You're probably hitting some sort of filter set by the channel owner. Common filter set is anything that has a link in the comment which is why a lot of spambots will put a URL into account names since there's no way to block those on the creator's side. Outside of link blocking, the creator can set up specific words or phrases to automatically block. I'm not sure if youtube has any universal filters for the whole site though.
I started and stopped using Facebook in 2001. I’m so ahead of the curve 😎
Best lawyer on TH-cam hands down. Steve is a man of the people.
I still question the law's enforceability. If they have no physical/taxable business presence in that state, then what recourse does the state have?
They only need to business in the state. That is defined as the point the customer accesses the business.
@@KameraShy Yes, but states still tax it. Federal government regulates the transport while state regulates the sale is the way I understand it. I would have to talk with someone more information tobe sure.
They all have a presence in texas due to the internet exchange in dallas.
What? Facebook absolutely has a taxable presence in the state of Texas. Facebook has a taxable presence in all 50 states, and all states collect tax from them.
I would love to see what happens if they geoblock TH-cam in all of Texas. This law would disappear real fast.
Another point to consider, Steve, is that in a fashion this bill would impact a category of business which is by its very nature interstate commerce. Doesn't the law directly state that interstate commerce is solely the jurisdiction of the federal courts?
California got a waiver for CARB compliance. If this gets struck down it'll demonstrate a clear and obvious double standard. It will utterly shred America's rule of law.
Only affecting companies with more than 50 million users, and population of Texas only being 30 million, it does guarantee, at least, that it could not affect any social media company who only did business inside Texas and only had Texas users.
social media is most definitely interstate commerce, and is most definitely the sole purview of the federal government, which was totally obvious from the beginning, no matter how inept the courts of texas were.
@@DustinRodriguez1_0 State and local governments can always regulate commerce within their state more strictly than it is federally, they simply cannot prevent the federal government from regulating more strictly than they want to.
Example: The federal government can make lawn darts legal federally and a state can restrict them. If the federal government bans lawn darts, a state cannot legalize it on behalf of the feds. The feds can still go after lawn dart sellers even if the state doesn't.
States can also regulate something like recorded conversations within their state even if they reach outside their state.
The way a company can rectify this is to leave Texas. Then they have no jurisdiction.
Since when does Alito care about precedence?
When it suits him to care
When it's convenient for him.
Ironically, I think this law would probably have the actual effect of further segmenting people into online "echo chambers" of opinions similar to their own. Thus worsening a different issue with social media on the internet.
The law also touches on property rights. Social media companies are not the government, so censorship actually isn't possible, given the legal definition of censoring. Were the concept expanded, one literally could never throw a guest out of your home during a party for verbally starting altercations.
Not really. Opinions won't be changed by censorship of some ideologies on the likes of Twitter. The splinter groups find other venues for discussions, such as Parler or Rumble. If the major social-media organizations were forced to allow all points of view, then at least all groups would be together under the same "roof." There would be a greater chance that they would actually talk to one another instead of ignoring or insulting each other.
@@joesterling4299 the main thing that stands in the way of that type of thing actually happening is financial viability. The law makers may intend the law to do exactly what you commented. However, if social media companies are subjected to this law and the types of lawsuits it allows against the companies, it will significantly impact the shareholders return on their investment. For this reason every social media company the law could potentially apply too will definitely find ways to skirt the law by pulling out of Texas, removing the ability to comment or provide your opinion at all, making sure they are under the user cap specified in the law, or some other way of skirting the law that involves making rules the users must follow or agree to else they risk getting kicked from the platform.
It is not that the users opinions will change. The rules and practices the law gives rise to will likely further fragment users away from larger platforms towards smaller ones they like. Ones that likely share similar opinions to their own. Echo chambers.
Also, the internet is host to people from all walks of life. Be it clinically insane, unreasonable, entitled, vulgar, rude, gross, reasonable, normal and many more. Expecting less flame wars on the internet due to this law is about as unreasonable as expecting congress to pass a law cutting their own pay during a boom or bust period of the economy.
@@spvillano 1st amendment free speech censorship isn't possible because the first amendment prevents the government from censoring the people. However censorship is possible and something social media companies can do. Private parties can censor the government or other private citizens if they wish under certain circumstances. Such as for violating their terms of service or rules on what content is allowed to be posted. I dont think this law would apply as far as your example of censorship in private homes though. It only applies to larger social media related companies.
The current situation is that it is already largely an echo chamber, but only for progressives. I'm okay with allowing other echochambers to grow compared to what we have right now. That isn't to say you can't speak at all from the opposing side, but you must tip toe and make every disclaimer to MAYBE not be banned where as if you are part of the right thing you can pretty much call for the murder of all whites or Christians and be given a pat on the back by said social media.
I would have loved to have gone to law school and taken the classes you taught. Fortunately, your videos are the next best thing!
You should be able to clep law school.
"I learned all this from Steve Lehto. Just let me take the test." 😂😂😂
@@stephentthomas in the olden days reading the law and listening to lawyers was enough to allow you to sit for the bar exam. That's pretty much not an option anymore.
@@Ikantspell4
That's because in order to maintain high levels of corruption, they need lawyers to be DEEP in debt!
You probably would have done well (you got the brown nosing down)
Hahaha!
(Jk) ....(kinda)
@@jupitercyclops6521 To maintain high levels of elitism/prejudice a minimum prover of wealth, breeding, race and class was NOT established, just a requirement that people spend years not making money racking up large bills and hiding in an ivory tower.
The fact that the FCC doesn't currently consider internet service providers as common carriers should be enough to tell them to stuff it. Also, common carrier was always to protect private speech not public.
On December 14, 2017 the FCC under trump reversed that decision.
@@GeorgeWashingtonLaserMusket under Trump ISPs were removed as common carriers regulated under title II. They were only common carriers for a couple years starting in 2015. Prior to that we had content limiting like treating certain data like Netflix from being streamed at full bandwidth. By limiting bandwidth you essentially can prevent viewing certain types of content.
And even if ISP's were to be considered "Common Carriers", Facebook, Twitter etc are not an ISP.
@@tekcomputers imagine for a second if everyone on Twitter had a Dropbox account, and all tweets were stored there. Then Twitter would be a carrier between Tweetbox, the publisher and the reader.
This law was always a political circus and could never fly under our legal framework. One solution is to simply boost anti-trust / anti-monopoly laws to break up Facebook Marketplace, Facebook Groups, Facebook Messenger, Whatsapp, Instagram, etc. I'd be okay if TH-cam had Twitter/Reddit/TikTok threads under every video instead of a first party forum.
@@ch4.hayabusa you just described pinterest.
My understanding is that there is settled supreme court case law that makes it clear that the first amendment prohibits the government (state or federal) from telling private individuals or entities that they must say certain things. How do those precedents not apply in the case of governments forcing social media platforms (which are covered by the first amendment just like anyone else) to put out speech? (in this case speech from specific individuals that said social media platforms do not want to put out the speech of)
It all should fall back to whether the operation is set up as a platform or a publisher. A platform is akin to a phone company not getting involved in what you say compared to someone who is responsible for what is provided to the customer. This distinction needs to be hashed out and enforced.
You forgot to mention that there is a section in the law that says that you can not, not do business in TX
and how would they enforce that?
That sounds 'real American'.
Grammar is clearly not their strong point
@@dennis8196 that made sense. Texas is trying to say that you cannot not do business in Texas. Texas is trying to say you have to do business in Texas
Yep. "If they refuse to do business in Texas you can sue them." If they decide not to do business in Texas and make it plain and obvious that they are not doing business with the state or its citizens, what right would a Texan have to sue? If a business owner refused to do business on Colorado by saying "it would not be profitable for me to open a franchise for my Tex-Mex restaurant in Colorado", that's perfectly valid and that would be their choice, they aren't obligated to do so any more.
The law would bankrupt the social media companies from numerous lawsuits. It makes suing a social media company an easy thing.
Right now they are impossible to sue as they are allowed to be editorial but are not classified as publishers because they are not considered to be editorial. They have been made immune by intentional acts of executive, legislative and Court action.
Never forget the all the people are equal but the corporations are more equal.
You say that as if it's a _bad_ thing.
MR LEHTO: I want to add a consideration that maybe you can some how pass to the law makers:
Now we all need to consider our personal data is being collected and sold, this information about us is our information being used as a payment, thus we are paying for use of the service and thus we all should be aloud our say as we are paying to say it.
We should be able to sue for information on who has our data been sold to, for how much it has been sold for and for how long. We should be able to see any profiles made from the data collected and how those profiles are being used to manipulate us in anyway.
Even being banned could be seen as a way of manipulating us based on a psychological profile.
In the end we are paying for use and in doing so have the right for the use.
Another problem is one sided online contract agreements, end users have no way to negotiate user agreements and do not have the money to pay lawyers to explane them to us.
You are not paying, you are the product.
You don't get a say in how the business operates, you get one choice. Use the service, or don't.
Would this concept also be extended to newspapers? forcing them to print EVERY letter to the editor or else they are suppressing the the readers ideas?
Only if the paper had 50 million active users in the US in a month :P
Also letters to the editor are optional for publication based upon limits to the size of the paper while social media has space for all posts.
"we reserve the right to refuse service to anyone...."
Its not comparable because Twitter has the equivalent of effectively unlimited newspaper pages to publish whereas a newspaper has a limited number of pages it can publish in any one issue.
That’s 2 different things a newspaper is a publisher and can have say in what is shown. Please learn the law and what it says before you believe what any news media says section 230 does not affect newspapers in the way you might think it does
Seems this law collides directly with parts of 47 USC 230, so I’m interested to see at what point we decide that companies are indeed responsible for what they curate and serve to users, as well as what/how they moderate content.
No it does not. Their arguments are not even saying it collided with it. 47 USC 230 just does not hold providers for content which users post.
And...
"(3) State law
Nothing in this section shall be construed to prevent any State from enforcing any State law that is consistent with this section. No cause of action may be brought and no liability may be imposed under any State or local law that is inconsistent with this section."
Telling them to not to censor just opposing views is not inconsistent with the section.
@@knerduno5942 That’s the point. The TX law would hold site owners responsible for what they curate and what/how they moderate. 230 says “no,” TX law says “yes.”
@@P_Mann 230 states they cannot be held liable for something a user posts, and they can removed offensive items. A difference of opinion is not offensive. As stated, 230 is not the issue here as it was not even brought up in court..
@@knerduno5942 The laws will come into conflict when someone challenges what a platform decides is offensive as there’s no standard for what “offensive” even means. One person’s offense is another’s free speech and the TX law seems to allow people to sue because they don’t think what they posted is offensive, possibly even if it’s in clear violation of the platform’s TOS.
230 hasn't been argued before the court...because nothing has been argued before the court. It has all been injunctions. So we don't know the argument points yet. Steve even talked about that.
In addition to first amendment issues this law also violates the commerce clause. Social media is clearly a form of interstate commerce. You can't have 50 states writing 50 different sets of regulations, incompatible regulations almost certainly, for Internet companies. That would make it impossible for them to operate. Only Congress has the power to regulate commerce that cross state lines.
All the states can and do regulate out-of-state businesses when they do business in that state. You wouldn't want it any other way.
@@michaelsommers2356 Your interpretation is seriously lacking. We're not talking about transporting goods from a manufacturer to a customer in a different state.
You should read the TOS for the various sites, because they can and do specify where the jurisdiction is for any litigation or arbitration over their services. On that point alone, in fact, the law is unenforceable because every user agrees to and is bound by those TOS, and would be bound to litigate in the location the company chooses, which I can guarantee would NOT be Texas.
The Justices pick and choose what they believe in not law ... show me where in the Constitution it says abortion should be legal or illegal ... or anything about speech on the internet .... or how if we're being honest Thomas or any of female Justices have a right to be a Justice at all based on the original constitution ...
🤔 yet republican claim to be originalists...
In reality they're religionlists ruling based on dogma instead of law....
.
@@voxorox The TOS are an unenforceable, unconscionable contract of adhesion.
@@guesswho343 Show me where in the Constitution it says that only white males can be on the court.
Wouldn't social media platforms be "interstate commerce", so the federal government would have jurisdiction, not the states?
@@eriknervik9003 If Drumpf's social media company, Daily Stormer, Gab, Rumble, MeWe, and Parler could get to 50 million, it would apply to them as well.
How are national television broadcast media treated? Wouldn't these social media companies receive the same legal treatment?
@@midlander8186 -- The law was written to apply only to those networks that permitted and encouraged social interaction. So Facebook, TH-cam, etc. Broadcast media, streaming services, etc. were specifically excluded.
The fact that the law discriminates between large and small corporations makes it a SCOTUS question regarding equal protection under the law for those various corporate owners.
Without declaring an actual opinion on the social media law, I do have to say that if we’re talking about equal protection for companies based on some sort of size qualification, what about businesses that have to offer healthcare benefits if they’re over x number of full time employees versus those that have less than x number of full time employees?
@@elzar760 This has the same constitutional problem(s). Ultimately, SCOTUS must weigh how severely the law affects individual rights and how many people are affected vs. the overall benefit(s) of the law. SCOTUS will ignore the situation until a relevant case works its way to them through courts and appeals.
Steve, I don't know who does your intro
" . . . Here's Steve Lehto", but she has a fantastic speaking voice. One of the best I've ever heard.
I love they wrote into the “law” that it would also be illegal for twitter / Facebook to pull out of Texas
Texas is joke.
lol
Politicians that pass laughably illegal laws need to be held financially liable when these things get rejected.
Where does it say that?
@@michaelsommers2356 It's been answered several times, it's not our fault you're unwilling ot read.
HB 20, Sec. 143A.002-3. "A social media platform may not censor a user, a user's expression, or a user's ability to receive the expression of another person based on [...] a user's geographic location in this state or any part of this state."
This flat out says that the company isn't allowed to decide to pull out of doing business in Texas so it didn't have to comply with this asinine law. Because in order to pull out of doing business in Texas, it would have to block people by the geographic area of the state.
Net Choice members should preemptively abandon Texas, and see what happens.
The law makes it a crime to refuse to do business with people residing in Texas. How Texas believes it can require a business in another state to do business in Texas , I don't know.
One benefit of it going through the Texas courts is that it would have to pass muster with both the U.S. Constitution and the State Constitution. If the Texas Supreme Court were to knock down the law, that would knock the wind out of the politicians' sails a bit. It's the difference between an insider that you trust telling you that you made a mistake vs. an outsider telling you. People react differently, even if it is the same message.
Granted, but the social media company would have to be sued for that to happen.
@@jeffreypierson2064 Not necessarily. They could use the same method they are using now, just in Texas courts.
Here's a different take on it. If the servers aren't in Texas (or Florida) it's outside the jurisdiction of the state.
And because those servers operate in interstate commerce, it's likely that TX or FL would have limited or no jurisdiction. There are several huge data centers in TX that are owned or leased by the Big 3 social media companies; I wonder if Texas would miss the tax money and jobs should those firms decide to relocate to friendlier states?
You lost me somewhere along there but... I understand these are media platforms. But, so are newspapers, radio, and tv which all have the right to refuse to print or air your words because as private companies they do not fall under the 1st amendment. Newspapers, radio, and tv routinely refuse articles, broadcasts, and even requests for print ads just because they do not agree with the content.
it has to do with the distinction between being a "publisher" or a "free speech" platform.
As a free speech platform they are not held liable for the content put out and they get lots of tax breaks.
As a publisher they can edit the content, block that content they are not in agreement with, can be held liable for someone acting on the content and are taxed at a standard business rate.
Many media platforms want the tax breaks, get the liable protection and still block all content they politically dislike.
@@keithmalmberg8395 That's an argument based on a horrid misunderstanding of the law. There's no distinction in the actual law between the two.
Sure there is. Platforms versus providers under section 230. Platforms are not supposed to curate content under section 230. Is social media content being curated? Most people would agree on that.
So the question is should they lose the protections under 230 if they are curating. Some of these protections included protection from publishing copyrighted content because a user uploaded it. No social media company could operate without those protections as as soon as someone uploaded a copyrighted work and someone looked at it there would be liability.
But how can someone who curates their content be considered a platform under section 230?
@@migolka3799 That's actually wrong. Section 230 came into existence because before that curation meant you could be liable for things posted since people suing the companies could say any curation/moderation means the people running the platforms should have full and complete knowledge of every last thing posted on the platform. Lawmakers saw that as a problem because they wanted to be able to let sites be able to remove objectionable materials like porn (although the 2 underlying cases that brought the issue up were about defamation) thus passed 230 so platforms aren't liable for what users post on their site and it's the person posting it was liable. This gave the platforms the ability to moderate what's posted on there.
@@migolka3799 Like nearly everyone else who manufacturers this fake "Platform vs. provider" or "platform vs. publisher" claim you've conflated Section 230 and the DMCA.
Section 230 literally has nothing whatsoever to do with protecting the posting of copyrighted content. It also has absolutely nothing to do with requiring that content be curated "fairly". Section 230 is simply if you are operating an interactive computer service (that is a service that allows users to post content, text, speech, video, etc.), that the service is free to moderate that content, and in doing so said moderation does not make them liable for content which remains unmoderated.
Inarguably Section 230 does the exact opposite of what you seem to want to claim it does.
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.... are interactice computer services. The "platform"/"publisher" verbage is immaterial to them regarding Section 230. In fact Section 230 declared that the user who posts content on them is the "publisher" as a matter of law. And Section 230 effects that they can moderate the content users "publish" on their interactive computer service without being considered publishers.
Having read the HB20 in full. There are so many issues with the bill, but there are some okay pieces as well. First is that social media companies must have clear terms of use regarding acceptable content, which seems reasonable. The portion which is disturbing is the overly broad 'viewpoint' section. To take an extremes example: Some individuals in the world (including some in Texas) will take the viewpoint that adults engaging in sexual relationships with minors is okay, under this law it seems that they could post that viewpoint to on a facebook profile of a minor person, or on youtube channels targeted at minor persons. In this case youtube or facebook would be unable to act on these messages (ie delete them), as doing so would allow the poster of to sue them.
I think we often get caught up conflating the internet to books, newspapers or public squares. . A newspaper or book implies a publisher, a public square implies public ownership of the ground. In reality it is more like a private park on which the public is allowed, and advertisements occur. For example a Church may own a piece of land and allow access to that land (I live by churches where this occurs) or another example an amusement park which has no entry fee, but charges for use of rides etc, a really great example would be a mall... The private owner in that case would be able to have and enforce certain standards, such as no nudity, no hate speech , no harassment of other individuals, no bull horns etc...
The over reaching standard would then really be based on a few broad standards 1. The ability of the park owner to generate revenue/income from the park. So that any actions by individuals using the park which the park owner feels may impede this could be asked to depart/banned 2. The general enjoyment of other patrons of the park. This really loops back into 1, if one individuals actions remove the ability of others to enjoy the park, then in that case the owner is less likely to generate revenue/income due to lower use of the park. 3. Any other reasonable standards which the owner cares to facilitate as long as they do not violate federal law regarding protected classes (IE cannot ban people due to race/sex etc..).
When looking at websites not as publishers, or public squares but commercial areas which individuals are allowed to be/make use of there are a few different Supreme Court Cases which could give guidance, as well as some state level court cases.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pruneyard_Shopping_Center_v._Robins is one such case. Though the other other subsequent cases have clarified the position by expanding or narrowing the scope. Be careful in reading though as the main holding of this case applies only to California.
The Internet is today’s town square. Rights are meaningless if a business can effectively take them away with their terms of service.
Private entities are already forced to offer equal prices and terms to everyone when they have any kind of monopoly under RAND.
It is odd how people have to think about the interwebs. They think they have a right to it and forget it is a place of rules no matter how arbitrary they may be. You explain it very well.
I like the mall analogy, Mikeyboy. All of this tends to become convoluted for a former 11B Mech grunt/current telco worker like me - the use of figurative language serves to clarify it considerably. Well done.
Steve, in Texas there are two separate "supreme" courts for appeal. In civil matters the highest court of appeal is the Texas Supreme Court. The highest court for criminal matters is the Texas Court Of Criminal Appeals. BTW, both courts are elected as are most judges in Texas.
What I want to know is how was this law denying corporations their "freedom of speech", where you could argue that 1984Tube placing a "context" disclaimer on certain videos is within the bounds of "free speech", however, corporations *denying* speech from certain quarters is nothing to do with "free speech", but _everything_ to do with *censorship* !
@@danny8bit numerous things are not allowed under free speech. Incitement, child porn, terroristic threats, etc. The texas law wants to make racism, bigotry and bullying protected speech.
@@lrmackmcbride7498 racism bigotry and bullying are constitutionaly protected free speech if you are face to face with the person. Why should the internet be more restricted?
@@feonix42r74 this isn't public speech and bullying in not protected for public speech.
@@feonix42r74 ps. The skokie vs nazi decision needs to be revisited.
So, the big tech companies are fighting this on the basis that it interferes with their editorial decisions? Wouldn't exercising editorial control make them a publisher in the eyes of section 230?
Exactly, but
They want the best of both worlds.
They want the pwr of publisher without liability
They have the $ & power & they are in bed with gov so that's what they get, until we take the power back
They could just not censor content. We have laws against speech.
They want to control narrative
You know how you're not allowed to make terroristic threats in youtube comments or publish videos of beheadings?
You actually have this in reverse. Section 230 is the thing that allows them to have editorial control as you call it. Before section 230, a forum that moderated themselves were found liable for defamation because of what was a user posted there because they legally would have had knowledge of the defamation on their site while another forum got away with it because they did 0 moderation and were found to have no knowledge thus only the person posting it would have been legally liable. Lawmakers found this to be a problem because what if someone posted porn and there was no way for the site to get rid of it without opening themselves up to legal liability? Section 230 then came into existence to allow sites to let users post whatever they want and the sites to get rid of the bad things their users post without legal liability.
No, the user who makes the post is the publisher.
The stay needed to happen because the amount of damage that could be caused to the companies while cases worked their way through state courts (which would have to happen before the SCOTUS could weigh in) would be catastrophic.
Catastrophic destruction to Facebook. TH-cam, Twitter, Instagram, etc. Would not be a problem as these entities are acting as common carriers and at the same time refusing to enforce First Amendment rights.
Outrageous. The damage that censorship is causing to our society cannot be overstated.
@@cliftonmcnalley8469 -- right, here's my thumb and index finger rubbing together, playing the world's smallest violin for the plight of the poor social media companies.
@@cliftonmcnalley8469 Google shouldn't have to enforce rights as long as they don't violate them everything is fine.
I mean, SCOTUS could choose to hear it on an emergency basis, but they seem to like not doing their jobs and just putting everything on a shadow docket where they don't have to explain anything.
What I live about this is Texas wants everyone to sue on every issue.
With the exception of gun violence and suppression of access to the ballot box.
@@toneyeye I’m going to sue you for that 😀
didn't this law also prevent the companies from stopping service in the state?
Yes.
@@TheRealScooterGuy I do not see how a state can mandate a company do business in their state! That was the part of the law I saw as the biggest over reach!
Did they set the limit at 50 million specifically to aid truth social? Who as of may 6th only had 2 million total users.
You bet they did.
Well, if it was specifically to aid truth social, they would have set the threshold lower.
@@PvblivsAelivs truth social is about 48 million people shy of being applicable. Wtf do you mean?
@@nickybeingnicky
I mean to protect that as a favored website, a threshold of 2.1 million would do. Or if they wanted to allow for growth 5 million tops.
@@PvblivsAelivs or set the bar at a number that would be a percentage of voters nationally that could actually swing an election? You don't think 2 steps ahead.
Limited to platforms with more than 50M users. Then Truth Social is not limited by that law.
Out of an abundance of caution the major social media company’s should block access to their sites in Texas and Florida.
The productivity increase in those states would be too damning if they did.
Please do. Then our youth would become instantly more productive human beings… true social skills would develop, conceptual thinking would re-emerge, and our employment numbers would shoot up.
@@trarock24 it would also make them froth at the mouth and claim that they were being oppressed and that they were not being treated fairly by the evil lefties. I just think it’s hilarious to harass them simply because they’re Texans and Floridians.
Yep,
And when someone tried to log on, just have the website say “we’re not available in your location, pleas3 contact your legislators for details “
Yep, only liberals should have a open platform. Communism at its finest! Propaganda's finest hour.
KnifeMaker
This is just like when people talk about the suing gun manufacturers for what happens after it is sold to the consumer
This brings up the Federal Law that gives 'Cover' to Social Media Companies, such as Facebook, You-Tube, and Twitter....about whether Social Media Companies are a 'Publisher' or an 'Editor'. Social Media Companies are NOT 'Liable' for the Content for 'Publishing' it, but are NOT covered if they are an 'Editor'. (Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996)
These Social Media Companies continuously switch between the 'Publisher' and 'Editor' Roles, and claim they are Covered when they remove similar content, but one is from a POV from a Conservative (which they Remove) and one from a Liberal (which they allow to stay)....yet this is an 'Editor' function NOT a 'Publisher' Function.
so i'm not privy to the words used in section 230 of said act since i am a canadian and don't really need to know said law. i once heard it was the difference between being a publisher and a platform but now you are saying it's the difference between being an editor and a publisher. i however do know that what you are saying is correct. they are in fact using this act to protect themselves while actively breaking the terms that gives them said protection.
You are ignore CompuServe law suits . It was that law suit that allows web sites to moderate content. You are also missing the point of section 230 . It was so that website could moderate >
(c) Protection for “Good Samaritan” blocking and screening of offensive material
Utter bunk. Pretend I'm a publisher, say books. You come to me with your book about The White Replacement Theory. I think your book is stupid so I decade to not publish it. That doesn't make me an editor. Conservatives scream about social media companies censoring them yet when other options are available they always come back. Why? Parler exists, why would you want to use Twitter if they censor you? Why would you use TH-cam if BitChute exists? The answer is that Twitter and TH-cam aren't actually censoring people because they're Conservative. I used to get so many Fox and PragerU videos in my recommended feed after watching one of Steve's videos I had to manually tell TH-cam to STOP sending me Conservative content.
Someone hasn't read section 230.
@@WellnessWizdom Unfortunately a lot of people haven't read section 230 and don't understand what it actually does. It's been turned into a boogeyman that is responsible for all the things they don't like on the internet, even though it's the only linchpin that gives them an internet voice in the first place.
In the past it seemed that such a suit would be dismissed for two reasons.
First, a lack of standing. No party has had the law directly affect them.
Second, the law hasn’t been applied. There are no clients.
Thank you! I was wondering how this case is different from other similar cases. Is that the 'ripeness' doctrine?
@@n1gak The suit is brought by a collection of parties the law would impact, as a preliminary injunction against the law being applied in the first place; a preliminary injunction is called "extraordinary" for a reason. Suing the government is a little different than suing a private entity in that regard.
The social-media sites have standing. If the law goes into effect, they will have to spend lots of money complying with its requirements. Things like setting up the complaint-handling procedures, and the required reports. They don't have to wait to be sued under the law to be affected by it.
@@michaelsommers2356 I'm out having a hard time understanding this whole conversation I'm not a very smart man. But California emission laws affected the whole automotive industry
@@patrickdecambra2219 in general, automotive companies are not too opposed to mildly more stringent emissions laws. In their own interest, these laws raise the barrier to entry and help justify the large teams that are already needed to create all the machinery that goes into a car. These laws are also factored into the automakers timelines ahead of time. If these laws were taken off the books tomorrow, it would cause a massive panic, at least in a time where cars are not in short supply. Companies would need to remove all the expensive technology for emissions from the car to stay price competitive.
If this actually gets allowed, it would have been nice if instead of just social media companies, it applied to everyone in the chain, ISPs, distributors ect, because this is effectively net neutrality with the very limited scope of content posted by end users and only if the original distributor blocks, throttles, or removes it. Its just so odd that texas faught against net neutrality, but they want this.
Net neutrality sounds nice in theory, but in reality prevents ISPs for charging more for access to, say, the Philippines. Which is of course what radical groups would allege against any ISP which didn't perform takedowns on media they dislike. Even if fines are not levied it still causes endless costs and litigation. So it gives radical groups a way to levy unofficial penalties.
This law is very much like net neutrality - except Texas is the one in control. So they got rid of someone elses' political weapon and now want to create their own. Complex yet simple.
because our legislators generally have no idea on the technical or culture intricacies of modern technology. They rely on lobbyists to tell them the details, and depending on the lobbyist could be a boldfaced lie or a horrifically twisted interpretation. Many of the right to repair bills over the last couple of years were struck down because they relied on apple and other industry lobbyists to tell them the impact of what right to repair would do and they straight up fabricated and lied through their teeth.
@@Mavendow net nutrality is to prevent ISPs from throttling companies or individuals who dont subscribe to the ISP's services, or slow down services that compete with the ISP's services(or charging them more just because they're competition), it has nothing to do with a companies political belief system its about preventing anti-capitalistic behavior with the psuedo extortion ISPs use on their customers.
Edit, i'm not agreeing with the law, i'm just saying that it would be nice if the law included something positive
I know this comment is a year old, but here's a question.
Why would unruly conduct online be allowable, but not in person. If I go into a bank and start yelling at people, preventing them from having their peace, I'd have the police called on me and be removed from the space. The same idea goes if I write a program to spam a content creator's platform with comments, now I can't be removed from that space. Now content creators in that situation would have no community, because no one would be able to see anything other than whatever nonsense I write to clog up the pipes, so to speak.
@@JosefDerKaiser Who defines unruly is the question
Is championing LGBTQ rights unruly
Is championing body autonomy and personal autonomy unruly
Is championing the second amendment unruly
I dont like echo chambers because that's how we end up with totalitarian groups in power.
Sure these are private companies
But try to find a public one
They dont exist because they're not allowed to exist.
Imagine the only place you were allowed to speak, were in a park with a public speaking permit and not online, because the people who run these sites, or your ISP, or your web browser, or your OS, disagree with you
Take the thing you're most passionate about, and imagine a world where the only place you're allowed to talk about it is in person and on public land.
I know you have no interest in it but with each passing video I am convinced you would be an amazing Judge.
Freedom of speech isn't a freedom of consequences. This law is an attempt to stifle such consequences.
The law was written to make profits off big companies. Its basically Green Mail. Settle or it will cost you huge.
It was made to help ensure the new public square is actually public and not approved entry only
@@js8270 if that's your best argument you arent worth the time
@@yummyherbicide7296 they are not public companies. That is why they have a ToS
@@yummyherbicide7296 when did privately owned web sites become the public square?
@@scottlemiere2024 since Leftists bitched about Trump being able to block them on a private platform and took it to court.
Does not the Interstate Commerce Clause come into play?
Social Media, under consumer protection, should be forced to have transparent censorship of their platform. That's all I want. No first amendment violations, just that companies should have to be straight with its users and not lie or obfuscate their contract and the policies they enforce on the users.
So you are saying you've read the terms of service for the sites you use.
Sounds nice. (And I run a group on FB that points out some of the weird things they do, with examples.) The problem is that social media companies are using AI to make decisions, and the AI sometimes gets it wrong. If someone is harassing another person, nobody really has an objection to it being removed. But when someone says something like, "Nominate Anita Hill for the current vacancy, and Clarence Thomas will likely have a coronary," and the AI tags that as harassment, people get pretty upset. This example is real, btw. It's my own experience with Twitter. Happened last January and I've been in Twitter-jail ever since.
Amazing how the corporations as people get expedited access to SCOTUS while ordinary people would have had to wait many more years to get to this point.
It is also amazing how a corporation can get standing where ordinary people would not.
By the corporations, of the corporations and for the corporations.
I saw this story and immediately thought there must be 1 million (yes million) people who have sent it to Steve.
👍 that's the same logic that says everyone saw what happened surely someone else must have already called 911 so I don't need to...
that's why I can feel free to film it with my phone for social media. 🤳
@@copcuffs9973 Well, the same logic, but hardly the same stakes or moral obligation. Kitty Genovese’s life is not hanging on whether Steve misses a story. (As Phil Ochs’ classic, “Outside of a Small Circle of Friends” plays in my head.)
What I didn't understand was how the Court of Appeals isn't required to give reasons why they did what they did?
The only people that shouldn't have to tell you "'why" are your parents! The 'Cuz we said so!' ruling is inherently unjust any time it's applied (unless it's to a 3 year old asking 'Why' for the millionth time that day)!It basically means 'our reasons are too complicated and too numerous to explain' when used with a child. When used in a Court of Law it now sounds like, "Because we have the power to do whatever we want!" That sounds dangerous.
It's the Fifth Circuit. They do whatever they want, regardless of precedent.
It seems that directing it at the large social media outlets only, frees up the the fringe perhaps extremest sites to exclude counter arguments and avoid being neutral.
It's a standard GOP carve out law. When politicians wanted to tax universities, they based the cutoff on who would be taxed on the endowment size of the targeted universities.
@@NuncNuncNuncNunc Also used to protect Bob Jones and Oral Roberts type schools perhaps.
Is this the same SCOTUS that took away prisoner's rights to appeal because it would be a waste of judicial resources to have all that litigation that's going to fail in the end?
They basically said "it's not the job of appellate courts to be finders of fact, but to review the process by which the verdict was found". IOW, you can prove your innocence beyond a reasonable doubt by the time your case goes to appeal, but the appeals court cannot take your factual innocence into account.
@@raygunsforronnie847 "but the appeals court cannot take your factual innocence into account." How that doesn't immediately incense everyone is beyond me.
Steve, Like you, I can see both sides of the SCOTUS decision. In the Prima Facie it would constitute an intrusion by a government into the ability of free speech. And that while there is precedent for some types of restrictions to be considered, the specifications trying to be enacted would be overwhelmingly reactive. So to be considered by SCOTUS, the matter would need to encompass the algorithmic programming that most social media sites use for their comments section. Such Algorithms are the first point of contact between an OP and a social media site. Be it a presentation site such as You Tube, or the various levels of what can be described as the soapbox sites. Such as Facebook. Or even business networking sites. There are probably millions of instances where algorithms have caused inputs into the site to be rejected but without a means for the users to refute such rejections. These would be the types of cases that could be heard and even that might become overwhelming to any State court.
There are plenty of instances where I've told guests in my house to stop speech that would've started a fight with other guests. Texas would hold that I'd have to allow things to devolve into a fight and I suffer the damages of a fight within my own home, as I'd not have the right to halt things before damage from fighting occurred and the troublemaker could sue if I even tried.
I have property rights, so do social media companies.
@@spvillano, While I agree that there are many social media trolls that only want to have a public fight and it would be nice to have social media companies rectify such behavior, the main difference between social media and one’s home is substantially different. In your home ,yes you are responsible to try to avoid violent confrontation.sometimes it is possible, other times not. At least on social media, despite provocation, you can just not respond to such trolling. It is mo5 the responsibility of such companies to intervene except where obvious degradations of confrontation of any type become apparent.
As with language however, an algorithm cannot distinguish context. There are instances of what has been defined to the algorithm as hate language that in a different context is and must be completely acceptable. In the comments there was such an example. And I have myself needed to report.a networking site over it’s algorithm when I used the title of a play registered with the Library if Congress, and that my inclusion on my resume along with others, would be acceptable to a reputable African American producer, and in no way in the context could it be considered offensive. For some of the sites I have contributed to, I have gained various forms of detractors. Such as some of the mathematics problems that include multiplying an integer by 0. while the rules taught by math teachers is that 5he answer is 0, that answer us in defiance of reality. Through example I have asked that if they were told that their income would be multiplied by 0, would they still receive their current income, or would they be working for nothing. I have bern calked many things ,however the logic of my example is sound. And was used to prove that Zero cannot be a multiplier and what is being taught is incorrect. I do not respond to such provocations
Usually to me it means that some way I have upset the way someone has bern inculcated to think. I do not make statements simply to provoke a particular attitude however, so many subjects have been “ Hot Button” controversial subjects that only with independent 5ought and reasoning, can some grasp what I state. In the past year and a half, most social media sites have made a concerted effort to render truly hate and violence provoking content to be eliminated. Usually by revoking the individuals ability to participate on their sites. If their comments do not get included in rational discussions, it can be considered in the manner that Billy Joel used in one of his lyrics. “ And you can speak your mind, but not on my time”.
@@walterulasinksi7031 First time on the internet? Trolls cause flame wars. To claim anything else is naive or lying.
Without going through nearly 1000 comments, has anyone noted that the root of all this was Twitter and Facebook kicking Trump off their platforms for repeatedly violating Terms of Service, that the whole point is to benefit him?
Yep. And the pillow guy and others like them. They can't seem to tell the difference between truth and fabrications.
I object to the use of civil law to accomplish goals that should be addressed by criminal law.
They have broken plenty of criminal laws they should be prosecuted for instead of this way. I for one just recently got a nice check from them for one they got sued over.
So in a case like this, does the attorney's 1/3 get calculated before or after their double attorney fees gets paid? i.e. $5k in attorneys fees (doubled to $10k) and a $10k award would be a judgement of $20k. Would the attorney get $13,333 or $16,666?
When a citizen writes a comment to a newspaper, there is no guarantee that it will be published, and no expectation that it will be. And there is no requirement that the newspaper publish the comment. AND, news organizations since day one have the right to edit what they publish. This of course is somewhat shaping public information & thought. The argument is then proposed that the commenter can get the comment published at any number of other outlets. All this is exactly analogous to digital media platforms. Let's put it this way--- Fox News and CNN definitely edit their published output to influence public thought & opinion, and no court is suggesting they can't. Sadly.
The important difference between news organizations and social media platforms, is that IT USED TO BE that news organizations did some careful journalistic research into the issue at hand, and people respected their editing because of that. Now, of course, neither John & Jane Doe on social media, nor the news organizations, do any research. But instead of the public understanding that and treating both platforms as barely worth 5 cents, we unfortunately have a population who does the opposite--- "It's all true, because I saw it in print or on TV".
If the law gets into effect without change, would it not be advisable for any big media company to just terminate their contract with users of which they see the risk of litigation, e.g. just throwing out all potentially litigatious users?
Just block everyone in Texas - problem solved
@@gorak9000 Alternatively, split into lots of companies with 49,999,999 users, which use compatible platforms or even a common carrier, thus for the user, the experience is smooth as if everyone was on the same social network. For instance, there is Mastodon, which consists of ~28,000 different servers operated by different people, but provides the same functionality as Twitter.
I have a very hard time imagining that they would let it take effect while working it's way through the courts. But if they did, then most likely what would happen, while the primary points of the law are being hashed out, is that they would disable the disputed features based on geolocation data.
That's what happens with the cookie consent banners California (and the EU) requires. Anyone from those places sees a cookie consent banner on nearly every single web site they go to. Most others only see them rarely, because many companies had to invest in using geolocation so as not to offend their customers everywhere else with the annoying government nanny messages. (Neither here nor there, but it's ironic that the cookie consent laws were for "privacy" but forced companies to actually pay a 3rd party for more personalized data in order to comply.)
@@mikecamdena I think the cookie notifications are more than government nannying. In this case I think it's more that companies wanted to not have to disclose how much information they're retaining (or to do so much more obtusely), and preferred to air on the side of less transparency.
You have to remember that the vast majority of people, and especially young people today, are quite computer illiterate. Most of them don't have any knowledge of how cookies and such things work. The problem is a lot of people assume that just because people today can use apps on a phone, that they have basic computer skills, which they do not.
How would a social media co. know which users are going to sue them?
All users from Texas should be subject to complete bans from posting on the social media platforms so that any deletion of messages for misinformation won’t be required. If they post, all posts should be deleted. You have read privileges but not write privileges.Rewrite the terms of service so that residents of any state who has this type of law have no rights to post.
Add to the AUP/TOS: "All users residing in, or connecting to The Service via any point of access or infrastructure in the State of Texas specifically waive all rights under TX HB20 and agree to hold harmless The Service and indemnify The Service against any and all claims related thereto." Think about that bit of sweeping wordage... "Your IP address resolves within the state of Texas, please agree to the Terms above to initiate or continue your use of The Service." "A trace-route shows your connection to The Service passes through internet backbone in Texas, please agree to the Terms above to initiate or continue your use of The Service."
Given the way SCOTUS has dealt with nudity as a free speech issue, would social media censoring of nudity be covered under this law?
"All users from Texas should be subject to complete bans from posting on the social media platforms so that any deletion of messages for misinformation won’t be required. If they post, all posts should be deleted. You have read privileges but not write privileges.Rewrite the terms of service so that residents of any state who has this type of law have no rights to post."
Congratulations. Many people are interpreting a provision in the bill to mean companies "have" to do business in Texas. In reality, the provision just means they can't do what you described.
When doesn't the government pass laws that favor some companies over others??
Exactly. There is antitrust law. These companies will be regulated in the end.
Look at the laws from the 1800s they were not made for companies but mostly for farmers and other people who held property. Still not for the general citizen but how they defined citizen and what was a voting citizen was different.
Hope you had a Happy Birthday Dan
Between this one and SB8, don't believe Texas should be allowed to pass any more "laws"
They should argue against this under the interstate commerce clause. Texas does not have 50 million people. The population of Texas is closer to 30 million. So Texas absolutely must be attempting to involve residents of other states in Texas law. That is the realm of the federal government and not under the purview of the a state.
Well by the latest count mr T's "truth social" has nothing to worry about for a long time
You confused me with "Mr T" - I thought the former boxer and actor had started a social media platform. Then I remembered that Orange Julius Caeser's last name also starts with a T.
There are a lot of issue here. One is whether there is a qualitative difference between a "supersized" Social Media Outlet and a smaller sized entity.
Also, this is another case where the 14th Amendment is used to apply the 1st Amendment to the operations of the individual states. (The1st reads: "Congress shall make no law ....")
"Texas should not have to seek preclearance from the federal courts before it's laws go into effect...", given the laws passed by texas recently....that's exactly what's going to need to happen.
And to be inarguable as these law firmly makes an afront to interstate commerce and the right of a business to decide where it wants to operate, such sits squarly in federal court.
Seriously. The crap they're pulling ought to be slapped down before it ever sees the light of day, especially when it is THAT blatantly unconstitutional. I mean, do YOU want to be the first teacher who gets sued for daring to say that racism exists? Or for having books that include non-straight, non-white authors in your library? Far better you never have to face that because that law never came into effect in the first place.
It 's pretty simple. Anyone who's not unusually stupid should recognize that the right to free speech generally doesn't mean that others have to help promote or distribute that speech.
That's true. A site like TH-cam doesn't have to exist at all. However, TH-cam has decided to promote and distribute third-party speech. It is not unreasonable to say that if it distributes third-party speech then it cannot block speech contrary to its political agenda.
@@PvblivsAelivs What's unreasonable is thinking that by distributing some third party speech they have to distribute all third party speech.
Apparently John believes a catholic church website should be forced to allow posts promoting Satanism and abortion.
@@WellnessWizdom The people advocating for these laws are generally morons who either haven't thought things through or hoe to avoid imposing the law on the people who share their views. I expect that part of the reason for the 50 million users threshold is that they're both trying to attack the large companies and also protect things like conservative and religious forums. Local churches definitely don't have that many users, but if there's some more generalized religious site it might become fair game.
I noted in some other video that the threshold is a monetary gross profit of, (I think,) $100Mil annually. Since Truth Social probably isn't ever going to be profitable, they are safe from this legislation, but all of Trump's competition are not. I'm not actually accusing the Texas legislature and Gov. Abbot of writing laws to help the GOP, and especially Trump, but it sure smells that way.
I'd love to hear opinions about this either way. (Please keep it clean, I want to really discuss this, not flame each other.)
Sorry can't go there I never discusse truth and politics in the same comment. That would be such a nasty business to be in!
@@williammac3735 I can't argue with that. Thanks for replying.😆
All judges need term limits
Then they become politicians. And they will be subject to the whims of public opinion and not the law
Way beyond the point that we needed term limits we needed term limits a long time ago
@@williamwinder5011 they are already politicians now! How can you not say their politicians now? They're literally stripping away all rights
@@williamwinder5011 its already happened. Roe v wade, they all promised under oath to respect precedent and wouldn't change that precedent. As soon as they got the votes, these religious nutbags who got confirmed by a bias right wing extremist movement all committed fraud to get a job, perjured themselves, and ignored all precedent cases that confirm roe v wade. Time for term limits, the right wing has destroyed that part of our democracy in their attempt to destroy all democracy ever since we had a black guy as president.
@@UlexiteTVStoneLexite but we still don't have them.
We need to start somewhere.
This law seems like it's trying really hard to miss the point of antitrust, while still being vaguely about antitrust.
GOP has zero interest in trust busting.
Think the feds should take the protection they gave them
It's going to be extremely hard if not impossible for companies to prove that certain content isn't being suppressed. These decisions are made by algorithms that are often impossible to dissect in a way humans can understand, let alone judges that think TH-cam is an ISP.
It's highly likely that humans wrote the algorithm and humans edit the algorithm.
@@108gk sometimes. But some of the really good ones are written by programs that people write and when that happens it can be hard to understand what's going on inside it. Both CGP Grey and Tom Scott have done videos on the topic that help break it down.
The bigger question is "does any governmental entity have the right to *compel* content that the owners/managers of private property disagree with? The newspaper is not obligated by law to publish your letter to the editor, for example, because the newspaper is ultimately a private enterprise.
Happy Birthday , Dan !
I freely admit I may be missing something and this could be a slippery slope argument but couldn't this lead to other states passing additional politically driven laws that target big companies in other, politically opposed, states?
Hypothetical example: Texas Co. won't do business with people that insult the Christian church. If you can be shown to have insulted the church they will refuse to serve you regardless of where you live. They provide a unique service that would be difficult or impossible to obtain from another company. New York then passes a law that says if any company refuses to serve you based on religious criticism then you can sue them and if you win you get a minimum of a billion dollars and your lawyers take possession of half to offending companies assets. If you lose you still get a million dollars and your lawyers can charge 10x their normal rate. AND if the offending company ever did business in New York it makes them open for this lawsuit forever.
I know this is outrageous so please focus on the spirit of the example and not try to argue against the made up circumstances.
It can and it would. California already is talking about laws like this.
If you are a business and publicly put out that statement then it is fully part of your business practice.
When your business gets tax breaks and protect from liability because you claim to be a "Free Speech platform" then you deny speech you politically disagree with you are wanting to be in 2 camps at the same time getting the best of both and none of the liabilities of either. They can not have it both ways.
@@keithmalmberg8395 There's no such thing as a "free speech platform".
@@keithmalmberg8395 None of these services claim to be a "free speech platform" though and there's no laws that would even affect them if they did.
Then Florida passes a law that if you DON'T criticize Disney, you can be sued by any interested party for up to $10,000.
The law being on hold will prevent hundreds of thousands of lawsuits from clogging the court system.
It was a 5-4 ruling,
But it’s really a 6-3 ruling because Kagan ABSOLUTELY HATES the “shadow docket”
If it was 4-4 she’d have joined the group to hold it
Does applying that law to only large websites give an advantage to their smaller competitors? Yes. Should we be aggressively trust busting those same large websites? Also yes. When social media corporations become large enough they more than other corporations which already have far too much political influence due to Citizens United become able to exert extreme influence on public opinion. Regardless of political affiliation that is something you should be concerned about and the public needs to start pressuring their reps to address this. This particular law is... not very good. Others have pointed out that it tries to require businesses to do business in Texas and other bizarre things about it. I do think it addresses an important problem though.
Large social media platforms are just easier to find. A platform could grow quickly and within 1 year have to totally change the way it operates from the star. Maybe users like something but as soon as they hit 50 million...in the nation not the state which the law is is in...the site policies have to change? Is that fair to the company and the users who like it the way it is
If a baker doesn't have to make a cake, then social media doesn't have to be the platform for hate speech.
Yeah they want it both ways because they just want what they want and they don't care when they're being hypocritical about another decision. Just hypocrites trying to throw a temper tantrum
and when are the Texans going to get called on their theocratic corruption?
There is no such thing as hate speech, even when I tell you that I am sure I hate you, because that is an OPINION YOU DOLT.
@@SonsOfLorgar unfortunately not for a very long time
Yeah. The left is constantly doing that when they aren't busy burning and looting.
Social media companies are publishers, but with very little in the way of editing. This bill seeks not only to remove what little editing they are doing, but on top of that, force them to publish all content no matter how offensive, damaging, or just outright dangerous. Moreover, even if they were to publish literally all content posted to their sites, they could still be sued by vexatious litigants or victims of the very misinformation they were trying to prevent.
Looking back, newspapers and their editorial process is what kept the John Birch Society at bay for 50 years. Now that they're gone, and there are no editors, we're pretty much screwed, because people not involved in journalism or research, no matter what political inclination they may have, tend to be pretty terrible at "doing their own research".
Terrible at doing their own research not merely via ineptitude, but by design.
I don't see how this case even made it this high. I could see if those sites kicked off all of the people in one group. You can still find millions of both sides voicing their opinions on these sites.
They do censor political speech algorithmically. Also block accounts. This is very dangerous and it needs to be fixed.
This law is a direct challenge to interstate commerce, which gives the Supreme Court original jurisdiction.
@@mrtechie6810 I doubt they are censoring regular political speech, probably hate speech added into it, but these companies are not governmental owned companies and have their own rights. If these sites were owned by the government then it would matter.
The problem with this law too is it could allow Texans to potentially sue non-Texans (Facebook, Twitter, and TH-cam have their headquarters in California) for statements or comments made by someone not from Texas ( I don't live in Texas and Steve Lehto is from Michigan) on comments from someone in Texas. The fun of dealing with laws for those in or out of your jurisdiction. I don't know enough about jurisdiction laws to know if I'm right but it does seem to have more of a federal impact than necessarily a state impact.
If a company does business in the great State of X, then it is subject to the laws of the great State of X, at least as far as its dealings in that state go. That is nothing new.
@@michaelsommers2356 I as a commenter living outside of Texas do not make money in Texas. So what legal rights do they have to impede upon my legal rights for the state to which I live?
Assuming this laws stays, the Texas entity could sue the platform. It would not impact you directly although it would cause a lot of liability for many tools on social platforms to remain the way they are.
@@chris122380 Why are you asking me?
Didn't the law also include a provision that it was illegal to stop doing business in Texas? Which is simply nuts. "You have to follow this law to do business in our state, and you're also compelled to do business in our state."
Alito is being disingenuous. He (and some of his fellow conservatives) wanted the companies to go through all the pain of conforming to the law while it plays out in court, so he's constructed an excuse.
Congratulations. You win the internet for a day!
Texas and Florida are full of unusual laws.
Every state has unusual laws. Texas and Florida have NEW laws targeting a NEW problem which must be addressed… so these particular laws aren’t unusual rather just laws which have not been argued so there isn’t a basis for opinion at this time.
@@trarock24 You are right except for the "must be addressed" part.
@@trarock24
What is the new problem? Hugely rich companies playing the 600 lb gorilla, messing with the health and safety of the public goes back a long way, easily predating the industrial revolution.
@@trarock24 These aren't new problems as they are bullshit made up by TX and Fl.
@@svn5994 disagree… not bs. There are issues and this being the initial movement to address them is always contentious…. In the end the outcome will be valued by all of us. Be happy someone has the intestinal fortitude to stand up for the Constitutional rights for us all.
That law, or at least some form of it, should be a federal law. There are precedents of privately owned public spaces where the 1st amendment is protected, and this is analogous to it.
If in the scotus dissent opinion you replaced “social media” with “newspaper”, for example, what does that imply. Ir how is this different from prior cases of some new form of opinion distribution and reporting in society that makes it special?
Agreed on the problem with why only above a certain size? It’s either do or no-do; the size of the media company should not matter. Basing on size seems to be an equal protection problem.
So many laws are based off the size of the business. Alot of fines the government gives are based off the size of business, so they don't put the small people out of business, and they assume the big businesses have more people to do more
The size thing is there to try to protect the crappy copycat platforms that Trump keeps trying to start up but never gets any traction with.
Newspapers do not have the safe harbor provisions that make them unable to be sued... for the content posted. But facebook, twitter, etc do...
@@MelissiaBlackheart I suspect it’s more to remove the burden from the small websites. Imagine every 300 user hobby website with a discussion board having to implemented all of this overhead and appeals process. A one man website doesn’t have a staff.
Even municipal websites and town halls don’t have the budget to support some of this. Thus the exclusion. But it does feel wrong I’m that it suggests dishonesty is ok so long as it’s in small doses.
@@Mortvent Newspapers actively choose what gets printed. Social media provides a platform for others to publish. The two are not the same.
Now, swap that out with "news channels" and see what protections spring up.
It's a lot harder than you think, when the majority of people use the main social media platforms. Most people either do not know about these smaller social media platforms, or don't want to use them because everyone is not on them. This is where you miss the point. I understand your legal stance as a lawyer, but from a social stance you are completely missing the point.
4 fools out of 9. There should be limits, short limits, for judges.
m f - That seems SO OBVIOUS. Lifetime appointments when very old ???
They're absolutely needs to be if we want to have any rights going forward
@@UlexiteTVStoneLexite If it's not too late already.
3, but yes.
@@SakuraNyan 12:26 It was a 5-4 decision to put a hold on it. "Justice Elena Kagan joined conservatives Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch in dissent."
Soooo. . . if someone advocates some behavior that is clearly socially unacceptable, or even just unacceptable to the members of the SCOTUS (for the sake of decency I refrain from giving examples here), and TH-cam deletes it, I can sue? Even if I a advocating a horrendous crime? That doesn't make any sense at all.
Viewpoints is not a protected class. There’s no merit to this at all. Companies are absolutely allowed to discriminate against any viewpoint they wish. You have no 1st amendment rights where private individuals or companies are concerned. This is absolute lunacy.
I usually agree with you,but not on this one. I believe that one appointed judge should not have more power than an elected legislator. The law should be in effect until it is proven unconstitutional. Social media giants will figure out and adjust until a final resolution. Thanks for the content!
The part I have a problem with is the clause that requires the business to do operate in Texas. Texas can’t require businesses to operate in Tx and be subject to this law even if the business doesn’t want to operate there. I don’t want to operate in CA and don’t want them to pass a law that requires me to operate there and be subject to their kooky laws.
Most sites have particular statements in their terms of service limiting which jurisdictions apply for filing cases and construing terminology. Wouldn't trying to file a case in TX if the tou says CA law is binding be grounds for automatic dismissal, without having to disprove any allegations, because they're not filing in the proper court?
Sounds like qualified immunity argument which is circular logic.
Not really. In this case, what is blocked by the lack of existing law is a temporary stay, not the final disposition of the case.
Exactly. Alito is basically running on that incredibly stupid thing.
Steve, I like your new truck!
The fact that such a law was not unanimously thrown out is scary.
Equally scary is the fact that the state feels that they had to attempt to make such a law. Big business and the government have been getting into way too cozy of a relationship lately.
Yeah but look at the other b******* that the supreme Court is doing right now. They literally just stripped away the sixth amendment by saying that you don't have to pay attention to evidence after a verdict has been decided.
@@texasforever7887 except for their very selective on what big businesses are going to allow to do whatever they want. They don't like the media businesses saying that they can't promote dangerous talking points but they'll let other businesses completely take advantage of people living in the states.
And for crying out loud make up your mind do you like free markets or not?
Not surprising considering how old and out of touch some of these justices are.
The law is reasonable. There was no basis for a stay. Companies are being classified as common carriers, no one is infringing on the speech of the companies, merely their biased censorship of users.
Which circuit is overturned more often, the Fifth Circuit or the Month Circuit? Someone I swear they've got an ongoing competition to see who can be overturned more
Ben - Turbine's hood
I'm only two hours late.... good job 😀
Why don't the states present legislature defining publisher/platform, in regards social media companies?
Interesting that neither SCOTUS dissenting opinion nor you mention what I see the crucial strength of the TX law in question: "Common Carrier" designation. The base of this law in my opinion is sound, how do we define common carrier in this new age? - well, if you serve 50+MILLION, that is quite a common service and it, by the very nature involves self-expression in public forum, which should be protected.
Common is not "common."
Edit: It's still a private company. So, get informed and shut up, yo.
@@alexsnow3319 can Walmart refuse service to all Democrats?
@@mrtechie6810 They can refuse service to anyone. PRIVATE COMPANY.
Kill your ego, trollface.
@@mrtechie6810 It would be a bad business move, but yes, they could. Could a cake baker refuse service to homosexuals?
@Mr Techie
Why do you think they can't? They can refuse service to people with blue eyes if they want. It's their property.
Texas only has about 25 million residents. How can they regulate interstate commerce?
This has already been litigated in the 1980's and 1990's in the context of malls being town squares. Mall owners are private companies not unlike Twitter and Facebook. The owners have the right to decide who can be on their properties and whether to deny entry to some patrons who might be a threat to others while visiting or simply deny entry based on clothing or political messages. There are other venues to spread hate speech, xenophobia and other Republican rhetoric, so it's not like the people of Texas don't have options. Republicans used to be all about small government but the Texas law is extremely egregious.
Discrimination based on political affiliation and or position is really the underlying issue. Texas and Florida's approach is farcical and will never pass scrutiny. They need to narrow the net.
That comment about the law interfering with their desire for an editorial role sounds to me like an open admission they don't wish to have Section 230 protection as a platform then.
How so?
@@gene8172 Section 230 protects Facebook, Twitter, etc from being legally libel for content on their service if they act as a platform. When they act in a manner to act as an editor outside of actual illegal conduct they lose 230 protection. Back in the dial up days you had AOL and Prodigy as the two big Facebooks of their day. AOL took the anything goes if it's not illegal while Prodigy took to appointing themselves as monitors to regulate speech on their platform and eventually several cases where legally actionable content got through and Prodigy was held responsible as by removing objectionable but legal content they established themselves as editors like a newspaper rather than a platform like the phone company.
The last 5 or 6 years in particular big tech has played both sides wanting the best of both worlds by being a platform when it suits them and expressing editorial control when the content was deemed wrong think.
@@garysprandel1817 Nopity nope. 230 doesn’t say that.
Any judge who was involved in the approval of this 'law' in the first place, should be disbarred for clear incompetence. How can the US have judges who make unconstitutional rulings ?