[HN Gopher] Court Dumps Texas's Social Media Moderation Law as C...
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Court Dumps Texas's Social Media Moderation Law as Clearly
Unconstitutional
Author : xoa
Score : 15 points
Date : 2021-12-02 21:33 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.techdirt.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.techdirt.com)
| renewiltord wrote:
| Excellent article. Another blow struck against those who would
| restrict free speech.
| xoa wrote:
| There have been a number of articles on this today and the
| Techdirt one is the most extensive in terms of citing the key
| parts of the ruling and highlighting previous precedent from what
| I've seen, but the title had to be shrunk to fit HN's character
| limit. Important to note as well that Section 230, while utterly
| vital and also under attack right now, doesn't feature in this at
| all. This is purely about the 1A. This ruling also addressed a
| number of the typical tropes that regrettably appear on HN. An
| expected but still very nicely thorough ruling, more so then the
| Florida one.
| ggm wrote:
| IANAL but I have some concern there is a sting in the tail. I
| support moderation, I prefer moderated spaces online. But, the
| moderator has taken on an editorial role. In Australia as I
| understand it the editor has a burden of duty-of-care: that which
| you let through, you are deemed to have published.
|
| So.. for lower bar lawsuit risk, moderation rights paint a target
| on you.
|
| Maybe in the US the higher barrier to sue for defamation makes
| this less risky.
|
| But I see the risk in eg publication of state secrets, illicit
| content. This ruling might be weaponised to get some vicarious
| liability out. Common-carrier has a get out clause, only the
| author bears the burden AFAIK
| xoa wrote:
| > _But, the moderator has taken on an editorial role._
|
| Yes? That's the point. That's why it's protected Free Speech.
| The entire point of free speech is to take perspectives! And
| critical to the right to say something is the right to _not_
| say something. If I want to support a specific policy or
| candidate or the like on my private property by putting out a
| sign in their favor, necessarily I must have the right to
| prohibit anyone else from putting out any signs on my property
| supporting whatever else. They may do so on their property, but
| not mine. If the government requires me to allow everyone to
| put up a sign supporting everything, it has the same effect as
| supporting nothing. And it would be no different if I allowed
| anyone else campaigning for said policy to do so as well. That
| all of us can take opinionated views and then advocate them in
| the public sphere is vital for robust debate.
|
| > _In Australia as I understand it the editor has a burden of
| duty-of-care: that which you let through, you are deemed to
| have published._
|
| Liability is an entire separate thing (covered by Section 230)
| from this. But thankfully in America when it comes to
| moderation of platforms there is no such thing since it'd
| completely destroy the entire user content internet (including
| Hacker News itself fwiw).
|
| > _Maybe in the US the higher barrier to sue for defamation
| makes this less risky._
|
| There is no liability at all for moderation.
|
| > _But I see the risk in eg publication of state secrets,
| illicit content._
|
| It Government's job to protect their secrets. If private
| unconnected individuals get ahold of them they may publish
| them. This predates the internet entirely and was thoroughly
| dealt with during the Vietnam War with regards to the Pentagon
| Papers in the SCOTUS case New York Times Co. v. United States,
| 403 U.S. 713 (1971) [0]. And rightly so.
|
| As far as illicit content, there is no issue at all. Platforms
| must of course respond to legal orders, legal take downs, the
| user who published something illicit is _personally_ liable,
| and if they themselves publish it then they of course are
| liable. This has nothing to do with illegal material which by
| definition is illegal, this has to do with the government
| attempting for force people to engage with views they do not
| want to. If someone doesn 't like how somebody else speaks
| on/with their own private soap box, they are free to go make
| another one (and indeed that is now easier then at any time in
| human history).
|
| ----
|
| 0:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Times_Co._v._United_S...
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