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Social Networks The Courts United States

Florida Brings Battle Over Social Media Regulation To the Supreme Court (washingtonpost.com) 183

Posted by msmash from the escalating-matters dept.
Florida's attorney general on Wednesday asked the Supreme Court to decide whether states have the right to regulate how social media companies moderate content on their services, a move that sends one of the most controversial debates of the internet age to the country's highest court. From a report: In its petition, the state asks the court to determine whether the First Amendment prohibits a state from requiring that platforms host certain communications and also whether the states can require companies to provide an explanation to users when they remove their posts. The petition sets up the most serious test to date of assertions that Silicon Valley companies are unlawfully censoring conservative viewpoints. The decision could have wide-ranging effects on the future of democracy and elections, as tech companies play an increasingly significant role in disseminating news and information about politics. Critics of the state social media laws and tech industry representatives also warn that if the Florida law were to take effect, it could lead to a torrent of hate speech, misinformation and other violent content that some major social media companies' policies currently prohibit. The petition is a response to a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit earlier this year that major provisions of a Florida social media law violated the Constitution's First Amendment. The law would bar companies from banning politicians from their services.
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Florida Brings Battle Over Social Media Regulation To the Supreme Court More

Florida Brings Battle Over Social Media Regulation To the Supreme Court

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  • More like... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by skam240 ( 789197 ) on Wednesday September 21, 2022 @03:08PM (#62902303)

    More like they're exploring whether states have the right to revoke website's first amendment rights.

    We don't have free speech if companies are forced by the government to host content they dont want to folks.

    • ... won't be long until non-corporate, corporeal people will be forced to say things they don't want to, for fear of defenestration. It's an old story
      • "You must love Big Brother. It is not enough to obey him: you must love him." -- George Orwell, 1984

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Mitreya ( 579078 )

      companies are forced by the government to host content they dont want

      That still seems like a good idea. They don't have to host anything, but they should have a clear policy and there should be a process to request an explanation (on the basis of the stated policy) in case one is banned or removed.

      require companies to provide an explanation to users when they remove their posts

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by linuxguy ( 98493 )
        "companies are forced by the government to host content they dont want" "That still seems like a good idea."

        Yeah, these things "seem" like a good idea at the beginning, to unsuspecting people. And then you get somebody like Putin in power who is going to exploit that power you gave them, in ways you did not expect.

        Giving govt. control over what you or independent businesses can say or not say, will always end in tears.

        Ask yourself this. Would you be comfortable giving this level of control to

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Mitreya ( 579078 )
          Sorry, my post did not come out correctly. No, giving control to government over company hosting rules is a bad idea all around. You are right on that.

          I meant that requiring an explanation (with some reasonable cost limitations) if your post is removed seems like a good idea.

      • It's a shit idea, designed specifically as a way to attack them. Content, and its many many shades of meaning are vague and fuzzy, and human decision making -- in all things, but especially that -- is fuzzy and can change over time or between two different moderators.

        Accept that there may not be policies (why shouldn't a site be free to be arbitrary in this regard, actually?), that they may not be clear, that they may not be clear to you, that they may not be consistent nor applied consistently.

        The big pic

    • Post photoshops of DeSantis having sex with farm animals, then see if DeSantis changes his mind about websites having a right to moderate content!
    • First of all, while in a US legal context, companies are considered people, from a personal perspective I don't think they should be. They should not have the same rights as an individual because the individuals in a corporation already have rights of their own.

      Anyway, I think it's more complicated than what you're saying. I've said before that I believe the primary purpose of free speech is to protect the rights of the less-empowered to speak against those with power. We live in a world where corporatio

  • Let me see if I can adapt this comment from another venue...

    Can social media nudge against divisiveness and away from divisive tribes in private bubbles? Especially when those bubbles are exploited by politicians of bad faith?

    Or is this question another form of projection? I want to think of myself as "open minded", but at the same time I don't want to waste time with stupid ideas, especially when those ideas are coming from people who seem to be scammers or otherwise excessively annoying. The dynamics of s

    • social media does. The 24/7 news cycle did as much if not more damage, basically breaking journalism over it's knee. It lead to "both sidesing", e.g. the practice of treating two ideas, one of which is objectively and obviously incorrect and the other of which is in direct opposition to the incorrect idea as equals. That's because of the need for 24/7 content and for 24/7 advertisers.

      This means absolutely, objectively ghastly political ideas get equal treatment with common sense ones because both sides

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by shanen ( 462549 )

        That's an apple versus my orange, but there is unification on the political side. However as regards your new problem there's more direct causality with government interference in the economic models of journalism. You must have seen my rants on the topic? But a short summary is that the two leading models now are disaster porn and disguised propaganda. My favored solution approach would be solution-oriented journalism, but I hain't detected any movement on that front... Well, there are some movements, but

    • Fear, anger, and righteousness are the things that have reliably kept people tuned in to media for centuries. In a competitive media environment, if you aren't making your readers scared, mad, and indignant, you're getting clobbered. Angertainment wins. Fox proved it, and the rest followed. You need bad guys and good guys, so you need division. You can get people angrier at other people than you can anything else. They'll get bored through the day, come back for a little adrenaline hit about something

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Scoth ( 879800 )

      There's a handful of problems with social media as it stands currently. There are basically two poles available - on the one hand, we have something like Truth Social that intends to be a completely open Free Speech zone. Whether Truth Social is or not is immaterial - in a true free speech zone everyone has the same platform to say whatever they want. On the other pole, you have a platform where everything is controlled, everything is True and Correct, and anything else is banned. This highlights the main p

  • Answer... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by MachineShedFred ( 621896 ) on Wednesday September 21, 2022 @03:12PM (#62902323) Journal

    "No."

    Why?

    First.
    Fucking.
    Amendment.

    Also, interstate commerce, supercedeing statutory law from the 1996 Telecommunications Act, etc.

    • But there's nothing in the Bible about it, and the constitution comes from the Bible. Checkmate, Libs!
    • Much of this is happening outside the US, where the First Amendment doesn't apply.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by skam240 ( 789197 )

        Much of this case being brought by a US state to the US Supreme Court is happening outside the US? That doesn't sound right for some reason...

        • Read the First Amendment. Do you know what it says? "Congress make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting its free exercise". Congress. Not Twitter, not The New York Times, not anyone else but Congress, the government. It does NOT cover anyone else. It does not cover private companies. You can't demand my newspaper print your words. The First Amendment only applies to the government preventing free speech. Just like Slashdot can remove anything from their website they don't like. That

      • I'm pretty sure a US State bringing a lawsuit to the US Supreme Court is happening inside the US.

  • Compelling speech is abridging free speech. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MachineShedFred ( 621896 ) on Wednesday September 21, 2022 @03:20PM (#62902349) Journal

    Everyone say it with me now: "compulsory speech violates free speech." Compelling a company to publish under governmental power is a violation of the first amendment, because choosing what not to say is just as important as having the ability to choose what you are going to say.

    Also, I'm SUPER surprised that the "party of small government" - the "party of individual freedom" - is attempting to establish legal precedent for government to compel the publication of their fascist propaganda over the objections of the publishers.

    Seems the GOP is only interested in shrinking the bits of government they disagree with? Not saying that's exactly news, but you know what I mean.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by rnturn ( 11092 )
      If you want social media companies to be forced to post your hate speech, you'd better plan on baking cakes for people whose lifestyles you disagree with.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Ichijo ( 607641 )

      Everyone say it with me now: "compulsory speech violates free speech."

      You should explain that to the judge if you are ever compelled to testify in court!

      Compelling a company to publish under governmental power is a violation of the first amendment...

      No, compelling a company to publish something they disagree with under governmental power is a violation of the First Amendment. But this article isn't about that, it's about requiring social media companies to be transparent about how and when they remove pos

      • > You should explain that to the judge if you are ever compelled to testify in court!

        Apples and oranges. When you are compelled to testify, it's about divulging information to the court - not about forcing the witness to speak something they don't agree with as if it was their own words.

        > No, compelling a company to publish something they disagree with under governmental power is a violation of the First Amendment. But this article isn't about that, it's about requiring social media companies to be tr

      • No, compelling a company to publish something they disagree with under governmental power is a violation of the First Amendment.

        Well, congratulations: you oppose Florida's stupid law.

        You also couldn't be bothered to read the very first paragraph of the injunction, which among other things says:

        The legislation compels providers to host speech that violates their standards--speech they otherwise would not host--and forbids providers from speaking as they otherwise would.

        Nor did you read the Florida laws. S. 106.072(2), Fla. Stat., prohibits removing a political candidate's posts. S. 501.2041, Fla. Stat., prohibits deleting, editing, or even posting an addendum (e.g. a disclaimer that the underlying post is a lie) user's posts.

        So there's compelled speech. Thanks for your denouncement of DeSantis and his shi

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Ichijo ( 607641 )

          Frankly, we don't need the transparency.

          Of course we do. The power imbalance caused by information asymmetry reduces freedom, so saying we don't need transparency is the same thing as saying we don't need freedom.

          • And what valuable information are you being deprived of, and how precisely does it affect your power?

            Don't give me noble-sounding blather. Give me specific details. True ones, if you can manage that, contrary to my expectations.

    • Couldn’t agree more. Last time I saw this it was the local law society trying to force all their members to write a statement on their adherence to anti-racism, diversity, equity, inclusion, blah blah blah. Im sure you’ll argue the forced speech is just as evil in that case.

  • How about a Florida DMZ (Score:3)

    by budsetr ( 4952293 ) on Wednesday September 21, 2022 @03:29PM (#62902375)

    Can't Facebook create a new Florida Free-Speech DMZ inside of Facebook? I'm sure it will be very popular with open-minded thinkers looking for intelligent discourse on politiaclly charged topics. It will probably be so popular that within one year, not only would it not be immediately shut down, but duplicated to to many states. God, spammers would hate this.

    • Facebook should remove Floridians access entirely - let them scream then, see if Florida creates a law requiring a business to offer service to Floridians

      • That would be really fun to watch. Can we sign California up? But wait, how do we stop them from using a vpn based out of state to access their drug, I mean facebook?

      • I'm kind of surprised this isn't the default solution. FL leaders want FB to change, FB doesn't want to change, presto! - no FB in FL. Does FL represent such an enormous market that FB is unwilling to walk away from it? I suspect a few well-placed ads in daytime television saying that Desantis is the reason you can't see your grandchild on FB will have oldsters beating him with their walkers in no time.

  • No they don't (Score:5, Informative)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Wednesday September 21, 2022 @03:37PM (#62902393)
    because they 1st amendment also grants freedom of association and Section 230 grants the right to moderate and the Interstate Commerce Clause grants the Feds the right to implement S230 and a half dozen other reasons I'm too lazy to list out...

    But none of that matters to this court. They've already shown the rule of law, decades or even centuries of legal precedence and simple common sense don't matter. It's a partisan court so anything could happen.

    As for Florida, they want to seize control of the Internet and this is part of that plan. They want to be able to control what websites say, and they're hiding behind "free speech" just like fascists always have. As usual everything old is new again. And we never learn.

  • Cannot stop censorship by censoriing. (Score:3)

    by gurps_npc ( 621217 ) on Wednesday September 21, 2022 @03:50PM (#62902449) Homepage

    You cannot stop businesses from censoring thoughts they dislike by having the government censor the businesses.

    The first amendment says the government cannot stop/force people to say something, it does not say corporations cannot.

    The problem is not the lack of free expression, but the monopoly power of the big internet companies. The solution is to break up Meta. They do not need to own Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp.

    On the same note, we need to consider whether Alphabet and Amazon need to be broken up. Apple and Microsoft have carefully positioned themselves as competitors, despite not really being so, they would be harder to break up.

    Please remember, that both of the big companies (Bell Standard Oil) that the US broke up did very well for both their shareholders and the public.

  • Cite the current US president - Facebook ban (Score:3)

    by ffkom ( 3519199 ) on Wednesday September 21, 2022 @04:27PM (#62902657)
    Just to mention where things are already at the moment: Here is the case of a German internet user who got banned from writing on Facebook for accurately citing a recent statement of the current US president: https://twitter.com/rosenbusch... [twitter.com]

    He just posted the correct literal translation of Biden's "The pandemic is over." statement, naming the source. Yet, in these times that is enough to stir up Facebook's wrath against opinions they consider "not sharing our values".
  • It's all about hate speak, and the right to start riots in the streets.

  • Run your own server, scream on a corner (Score:3)

    by KalvinB ( 205500 ) on Wednesday September 21, 2022 @05:22PM (#62902845) Homepage

    A baker doesn't have to bake your cake, a hoster doesn't have to host your take. Nobody is stopping you from putting web-server software on your own computer and making it publicly accessible on your own internet connection. If you can't be bothered to figure out how to securely set up a server on your own internet connection, then you are free to print pamphlets or shout your opinions on a corner.

    Since Windows 10, IIS has been perfectly sufficient to be used to run your own web-site on your own computer and post whatever you want.

  • The abridged timeline (Score:5, Insightful)

    by quantaman ( 517394 ) on Wednesday September 21, 2022 @05:26PM (#62902861)

    Someone opens a community pool and everybody starts coming out and having a good time.

    Then some rowdy kids start having fun by peeing in the pool and watching all the crowds get grossed out and scramble out of the pool.

    The folks who opened the pool respond by banning peeing in the pool and kicking out the kids who keep doing it.

    So the kids open their own "free flow" pool where peeing is allowed, but it's not nearly as fun without all the ordinary pool goers to freak out.

    So the kids petition the Supreme Court to demand that they be allowed back to pee in the original community pool.

  • There are so many smoothbrain takes here already, so I'll just link the Fifth Circuit decision which steelmans each objection and addresses them:

    https://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/o... [uscourts.gov]

    SCOTUS will rely on this decision in deliberations.

    PS stop using centralized platforms and use e2e encryption so noone censor you.

    • The Fifth Circuit is also 100% wrong.

      Judge Hinkel's injunction in this case, and the closely related Supreme Court opinion in Manhattan Community Access Corp. v. Halleck are better reads and actually are grounded in the law. The panel from the Fifth Circuit OTOH may not be able to count as high as five.

      That said, the judiciary is increasingly losing its legitimacy by focusing on political goals, so it would not surprise me to see the Supreme Court agree with the Fifth Circuit, but it would equally not surp

  • Net neutrality basically is that carriers of the internet, ISPs, have to treat traffic equally - it's an expansion of rights for people, not a restriction - and these laws are trying to accomplish the same. It's amazing how people are for net neutrality but against similar measures for social media. Large social media companies have become platforms for other peoples content, almost nothing you read on Facebook was created by Facebook, and their users measure in the billions some cases, well beyond the enti

    • It's amazing how people are for net neutrality but against similar measures for social media

      That's like saying you're amazed how people are for eating beef but are against eating babies. They're very different things.

      ISPs are infrastructure and should permit any connections. Social media sites are end nodes and each end node should be free to work how it wants, and to have the sort of audience it wants and can manage to attract. Totally different. Basically like the difference between the mail and a magazine that arrives in the mail.

      a common carrier "holds itself out to provide service to the general public without discrimination." ... It may be time that social media carriers are added - again given their extreme size and common use.

      Christ, you're fucking stupid. You just killed your own argu

  • I swear (Score:3)

    by nehumanuscrede ( 624750 ) on Wednesday September 21, 2022 @06:44PM (#62903119)

    I had to go dig out my login for this place out of some long buried archive for this :|

    " The first amendment is protection from government censorship. It has nothing to do with individuals or non government entities. "

    Pay attention kiddies, this is important and you will see it again in the not too distant future on a Supreme Court Docket . . . . .

    Under normal circumstances, you are 100% correct in this statement. First Amendment claims apply only to government entities, not private companies.

    However !

    When your company is actively working with or taking direction from the Government about what topics and / or individuals to censor, your claims of " But I'm a Private Company ! I'm not required to abide by those rules ! " tend to get a little murky.

    In fact, it could be argued, ( and that will be the focus of the topic if / when the Supreme Court ever takes this matter up ) that by working at the behest of the Government you effectively become a " State Actor " which means you are then REQUIRED to play by the same rules the Government does.

    What is a " State Actor " you ask ?

    In United States law, a State Actor is a person who is acting on behalf of a governmental body, and is therefore subject to regulation under the United States Bill of Rights, including the First, Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, which prohibit the federal and state governments from violating certain rights and freedoms.

    The short version: The US Government does not get to bypass Constitutionally protected rights by outsourcing it to private corporations.

    • I had to go dig out my login for this place out of some long buried archive for this :|

      " The first amendment is protection from government censorship. It has nothing to do with individuals or non government entities. "

      Pay attention kiddies, this is important and you will see it again in the not too distant future on a Supreme Court Docket . . . . .

      Under normal circumstances, you are 100% correct in this statement. First Amendment claims apply only to government entities, not private companies.

      However !

      When your company is actively working with or taking direction from the Government about what topics and / or individuals to censor, your claims of " But I'm a Private Company ! I'm not required to abide by those rules ! " tend to get a little murky.

      In fact, it could be argued, ( and that will be the focus of the topic if / when the Supreme Court ever takes this matter up ) that by working at the behest of the Government you effectively become a " State Actor " which means you are then REQUIRED to play by the same rules the Government does.

      This is why the government isn't supposed to be allowed to fund things like religious schools.

      But I don't see how it applies to Twitter or FB. They're not government entities in any sense.

      What is a " State Actor " you ask ?

      In United States law, a State Actor is a person who is acting on behalf of a governmental body, and is therefore subject to regulation under the United States Bill of Rights, including the First, Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, which prohibit the federal and state governments from violating certain rights and freedoms.

      The short version: The US Government does not get to bypass Constitutionally protected rights by outsourcing it to private corporations.

      Again, I'm not sure how this applies to Twitter and FB. It's true that it means the US Government isn't allowed to start picking and choosing viewpoints by turning them into State Actors. But well before that the US Government isn't allowed to take over their business and force them to become state actors [reason.com].

  • There are a lot of people who complain either about "censorship" or "supporting the alt-right" and they both want to petition some big company or the government to do something for them. Man... the answer is to get your own web site and say what you want there. Any path that is about making other sites do things the way you want... just further entrenches the power of those sites. It puts you in this weak, beseeching position where you beg other folks to do things with sites they own. The internet is ours.

  • Misinformed WaPo (Score:3)

    by HermMunster ( 972336 ) on Wednesday September 21, 2022 @10:43PM (#62903643)

    All speech is hated by someone. All speech is misinformed. There is no precision in speech capable of qualifying as precise enough to be 100%. We all get our information from inferior sources. Every take on information is viewed differently for every person. Pictures and videos are great examples. No two people can interpret a video and/or picture the same.

    Disinformation is where someone knows that they are lying in an effort to manipulate and harm others. Not just manipulate but also harm.

    The WaPo is way off base and they are spinning this in a way that disinforms. This hurts others. People that will deem this law as good whom are damaged by the WaPo words, as their manipulation may cause others to loose their ability to speak freely, just because others don't like what they say. We aren't talking about minor conflicts here rather major ones that can damage the future peace of others. Speech that people hate is why we have a first amendment. The first amendment allows people to speak their mind without fear of reprocussions from the government and its agents.

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