Just How Incredibly Fucked Up Is Texas’ Social Media Content Moderation Law?
from the let-us-count-the-ways dept
So, I already had a quick post on the bizarre decision by the 5th Circuit to reinstate Texas’ social media content moderation law just two days after a bizarrely stupid hearing on it. However, I don’t think most people actually understand just how truly fucked up and obviously unconstitutional the law is. Indeed, there are so many obvious problems with it, I’m not even sure I can do them adequate justice in a single post. I’ve seen some people say that it’s easy to comply with, but that’s wrong. There is no possible way to comply with this bill. You can read the full law here, but let’s go through the details.
The law declares social media platforms as “common carriers” and this was a big part of the hearing on Monday, even though it’s not at all clear what that actually means and whether or not a state can just magically declare a website a common carrier (as we’ve explained, that’s not how any of this works). But, it’s mainly weird because it doesn’t really seem to mean anything under Texas law. The law could have been written entirely without declaring them “common carriers” and I’m not sure how it would matter.
The law applies to “social media platforms” that have more than 50 million US monthly average users (based on whose counting? Dunno. Law doesn’t say), and limits it to websites where the primary purpose is users posting content to the site, not ones where things like comments and such are a secondary feature. It also excludes email and chat apps (though it’s unclear why). Such companies with over 50 million users in the US probably include the following as of today (via Daphne Keller’s recent Senate testimony): Facebook, YouTube, Tiktok, Snapchat, Wikipedia, and Pinterest are definitely covered. Likely, but not definitely, covered would be Twitter, LinkedIn, WordPress, Reddit, Yelp, TripAdvisor, and possibly Discord. Wouldn’t it be somewhat amusing if, after all of this, Twitter’s MAUs fall below the threshold?! Also possibly covered, though data is lacking: Glassdoor, Vimeo, Nextdoor, and Twitch.
And what would the law require of them? Well, mostly to get sued for every possible moderation decision. You only think I’m exaggerating. Litigator Ken White has a nice breakdown thread of how the law will encourage just an absolutely insane amount of wasteful litigation:
As he notes, a key provision and the crux of the bill is this bizarre “anti-censorship” part:
CENSORSHIP PROHIBITED. (a) 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:
(1) the viewpoint of the user or another person;
(2) the viewpoint represented in the user’s expression or another person’s expression; or
(3) a user’s geographic location in this state or any part of this state.
(b) This section applies regardless of whether the viewpoint is expressed on a social media platform or through any other medium.
So, let’s break this down. It says that a website cannot “censor” (by which it clearly means moderate) based on the user’s viewpoint or geographic location. And it applies even if that viewpoint doesn’t occur on the website.
What does that mean in practice? First, even if there is a good and justifiable reason for moderating the content — say it’s spam or harassment or inciting violence — that really doesn’t matter. The user can simply claim that it’s because of their viewpoints — even those expressed elsewhere — and force the company to fight it out in court. This is every spammer’s dream. Spammers would love to be able to force websites to accept their spam. And this law basically says that if you remove spam, the spammer can take you to court.
Indeed, nearly all of the moderation that websites like Twitter and Facebook do are, contrary to the opinion of ignorant ranters, not because of any “viewpoint” but because they’re breaking actual rules around harassment, abuse, spam, or the like.
While the law does say that a site must clearly post its acceptable use policy, so that supporters of this law can flat out lie and claim that a site can still moderate as long as it follows its policies, that’s not true. Because, again, all any aggrieved user has to do is to claim the real reason is due to viewpoint discrimination, and the litigation is on.
And let me tell you something about aggrieved users: they always insist that any moderation, no matter how reasonable, is because of their viewpoint. Always. And this is especially true of malicious actors and trolls, who are in the game of trolling just to annoy in the first place. If they can take that up a notch and drag companies into court as well? I mean, the only thing stopping them will be the cost, but you already know that a cottage industry is going to pop up of lawyers who will file these cases. I wouldn’t even be surprised if cases start getting filed today.
And, as Ken notes in his thread, the law seems deliberately designed to force as much frivolous litigation on these companies as possible. It says that even if one local court has rejected these lawsuits or blocked the Attorney General from enforcing the law, you can still sue in other districts. In other words, keep on forum shopping. Also, it has a nonmutual claim and issue preclusion, meaning that even if a court says that these claims are bogus, each new claim must be judged anew. Again, this seems uniquely designed to force these companies into court over and over and over again.
I haven’t even gotten to the bit that says that you can’t “censor” based on geographic location. That portion can basically be read to be forcing social media companies to stay in Texas. Because if you block all of your Texas users, they can all sue you, claiming that you’re “censoring” them based on their geographic location.
So, yeah, here you have the “free market” GOP passing a law that effectively says that social media companies (1) have to operate in Texas and (2) have to be sued over every moderation decision they make, even if it’s in response to clear policy violations.
Making it even more fun, the law forbids any waivers, so social media companies can’t just put a new thing in their terms of service saying that you waive your rights to bring a claim under this law. They really, really, really just want to flood every major social media website with a ton of purely frivolous and vexatious litigation. The party that used to decry trial lawyers just made sure that Texas has full employment for trial lawyers.
And that’s not all that this law does. That’s just the part about “censorship.”
There is the whole transparency bit, requiring that a website “disclose accurate information regarding its content management, data management, and business practices.” That certainly raises some issues about trade secrets, general security and more. But, it also is going to effectively require that websites publish all the details that spammers, trolls, and others need to be more effective.
The covered companies will also have to keep a tally over every form of moderation and post it in its transparency report. So, every time a spam posting is removed, it will need to be tracked and recorded. Even any time content is “deprioritized.” What does that mean? All of these companies recommend stuff based on algorithms, meaning that some stuff is prioritized and some stuff is not. I don’t care to see when people I follow tweet about football, because I don’t watch football. But it appears that if the algorithm learns that about me and chooses to deprioritize football tweets just for me, the company will need to include that in its transparency report.
Now, multiply that by every user, and every possible interaction. I think you could argue that these sites “deprioritize” content billions of times a day just by the natural functioning of the algorithm. How the hell do you track all the content you don’t show someone?!
The law also requires detailed, impossible complaint procedures, including a full tracking system if someone follows a complaint. That’s required as of last night. So best of wishes to every single covered platform, none of whom have this technology in place.
It also requires that if the website is alerted to illegal content, it has to determine whether or not the content is actually illegal within 48 hours. I’ll just note that, in most cases, even law enforcement isn’t that quick, and then there’s the whole judicial process that can take years to determine if something is illegal. Yet websites are given 48 hours?
Hilariously, the law says that you don’t have to give a user the opportunity to appeal if the platform “knows that the potentially policy-violating content relates to an ongoing law enforcement investigation.” Except, won’t this kind of tip people off? Your content gets taken down, but the site doesn’t give you the opportunity to appeal… Well, the only exemption there is if you’re subject to an ongoing law enforcement investigation, so I guess you now know there is one, because the law says that’s the only reason they can refuse to take your appeal. Great work there, Texas.
The appeal must be decided within 14 days, which sure sounds good if you have no fucking clue how long some of these investigations might take — especially once the system is flooded with the appeals required under this law.
And, that’s not all. Remember last week when I was joking about how Republicans wanted to make sure your inboxes were filled with spam? I had forgotten about the provision in this law that makes a lot of spam filtering a violation of the law. I only wish I was joking. For unclear reasons, the law also amends Texas’ existing anti-spam law. It added (and it’s already live in the law) a section saying the following:
Sec. 321.054. IMPEDING ELECTRONIC MAIL MESSAGES PROHIBITED. An electronic mail service provider may not intentionally impede the transmission of another person’s electronic mail message based on the content of the message unless:
(1) the provider is authorized to block the transmission under Section 321.114 or other applicable state or federal law; or
(2) the provider has a good faith, reasonable belief that the message contains malicious computer code, obscene material, material depicting sexual conduct, or material that violates other law.
So that literally says the only reasons you can “impede” email is if it contains malicious code, obscene material, sexual content, or violates other laws. Now the reference to 321.114 alleviates some of this, since that section gives services (I kid you not) “qualified immunity” for blocking certain commercial email messages, but only with certain conditions, including enabling a dispute resolution process for spammers.
There are many more problems with this law, but I am perplexed at how anyone could possibly think this is either workable or Constitutional. It’s neither. The only proper thing to do would be to shut down in Texas, but again the law treats that as a violation itself. What an utter monstrosity.
And, yes, I know, very very clueless people will comment here about how we’re just mad that we can’t “censor” people any more (even though it’s got nothing to do with me or censoring). But can you at least try to address some of the points raised above and explain how any of these services can actually operate without getting sued out of existence, or allowing all garbage all the time to fill the site?
Filed Under: 1st amendment, appeals, common carrier, content moderation, editorial discretion, email, free speech, hb20, litigation, social media, texas, transparency, viewpoint discrimination
Comments on “Just How Incredibly Fucked Up Is Texas’ Social Media Content Moderation Law?”
Be careful what you wish for. You might just get it.
Seems like the popular Internet services will deluged with spam, porn, and spam porn (those sick fucks…) while courts will ebe clogged with lawsuits over moderation choices by those services. Either one sounds bad, but both combined is a recipe for a legal nightmare. And the 5th Circuit doesn’t seem to think there’s anything wrong with that.
They say “everything’s bigger in Texas”. I guess that also includes the dumbassery.
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Why so surprised?
I’m gobsmacked that you all act so surprised when another law gets passed taking away people’s human rights in the USA. Haven’t you realised by now that the USA is NOT a democracy? What kind of delusional dream world do you live in? Do you not understand that you are (and have been your whole lives) living in a fascist state without any human rights? You don’t even have the right to your own body. Your country has just re-legalised slavery of woman and yet you are still pointing fingers at countries that are a million times more democratic than you are! Jesus Christ, US Americans are fucking stupid, smh.
Re:
There are quite a number of anti-inflammatory drugs available on the market these days. You should investigate them. At the least, you should put an ice pack on that rhetoric.
Just as a for-instance, it’s been long recognized that Roe v Wade was just kinda stitched together, but we didn’t codify it into law (or better, put bodily autonomy and/or privacy into the constitution). We just sorta apathetically said “good enough” and judicially avoided stress-testing the decision.
It’s less “USA is not a democracy” than it is “there’s too damned little voter engagement”. “Are you a member of the Red team or the Blue team?” is about as deep as much of the population goes. Witness MAGA, for instance.
Re: Re:
Privacy is in the Constitution. It’s in the Due Process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
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Re: Re: Re: Immunity
Would not an overly broad immunity that includes something as nebulous as “otherwise objectionable” be a violation of due process and people’s First Amendment right to a redress of grievances?
Re: Re: Re:2
No, it would not. For one thing, “due process” is only required with regards to government actions in a judicial/quasi-judicial manner, either when imposing punishment (like revoking, suspending, or infringing on existing rights or privileges) or determining guilt. A blanket immunity cannot infringe on this right as that is about determining what is a crime or unlawful activity to begin with and, generally, who can be legally liable for it, not just whether or not a specific entity is actually guilty of the alleged crime/unlawful activity and/or what punishment should be meted out upon a guilty verdict.
As for “redress of grievances”, there is no right to actually get a redress of grievances; only a right to petition the government for a redress of grievances. Offering immunity from suit or liability to private entities—regardless of the breadth, contours, or nature of that immunity—cannot infringe on that right as it only requires that the government cannot prevent private entities from petitioning the government; it says nothing about what private entities cannot do or what immunities could be granted to private entities.
So no, “a broad immunity that includes something as nebulous as ‘otherwise objectionable’”—when granted to private entities at least—is not a violation of due process or any First Amendment rights at all. I honestly have no idea how you came to such a conclusion.
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Never Heard Of The Guy
This sounds like an easy one to defeat, at least for platforms that aren’t busybodies. The platform typically has no knowledge of the author’s viewpoints off platform, unless the platform admits to it. In the case of Trump, his behavior with regards to the Jan.6 kerfuffle are sited as the reason for censoring, and not any viewpoints expressed on the platform. This is very similar to the speech policing of students off campus social media posts by schools.
A simple declaration by the platform that they never heard of the guy aught to blow up the claim. Outsourced and compartmentalized moderation teams can further limit discovery, as can algorithms that are unable to even consider political viewpoint.
Re:
> Jan.6 kerfuffle
What kerfuffle?
Was it a kerfuffle when Trump supporters were beating cops with flag poles?
Was it a kerfuffle when Trump supporters were using bear spray against the cops?
Was it a kerfuffle when Trump supporters literally shit on the halls of congress?
Was it a kerfuffle when Trump supporters were yelling “Hang Mike Pence”?
Was it a kerfuffle when Trump supporters where trying to find / execute Nancy Pelosi?
Was it a kerfuffle when Trump supporters violently broke through police barricades?
Was it a kerfuffle when Trump supporters violently broke into the capitol building?
Was it a kerfuffle when Trump supporters were conspiring to commit sedition?
You are either a stupid fucking idiot who has his head so far up Trump’s ass that you can taste his orange makeup…
Or you are so so fucking stupid that you can believe Fucker Carlson and not what your own eyes are able to see in the videos of the Jan 6 attack…
Or you are just so fucking stupid beyond reality… full stop.
Re: Re:
He’s one of them.
He sincerely believes that Trump is the White Savior the NeoNazis need.
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Re: Re:
Laughable. Not one of these things the left hasn’t done, and worse.
Federal officers and property were under attack for months in Portland. Blinded by lasers, attacked by everything you can imagine, setting the building on fire while officers were trapped inside.
Oh my god, breaking through a police barricade!! That only happened a thousand times in 2020.
Cops being murdered in cold blood directly incited by left wing rhetoric.
Democrats spent 4 years committing sedition, calling for trump to be killed, calling for direct overthrow of the government, brainwashed into complete delusion by Russia that the president was one of their agents.
Nobody was trying to execute Nancy pelosi, what kind of moron are you.
You’re trash.
Re: Re: Re:
[Projects facts contrary to real-world evidence]
Re: Re: censor internet postings
absolutely no censorship whatsoever! If someone wants to write about naked black midgets oppressing white Protestant-Irish gerbils behind closed Synagogue doors as preparation for Alien Disclosure, so be it.
Re:
Tell me you have no fucking clue how litigation works without telling me you have no fucking clue how litigation works.
Re: Re:
Wait… you must be new here.
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Re: Re: Re:
I apologize. I should have realized that Mike didn’t want an explanation or a reasoned discussion, and was just looking for an angry rant.
Re: Re: Re:
This is rich… coming from the same person that will NEVER point out which opinions are the ones being censored.
You have been asked 100s of times in good conscience, but not once have you answered the question of what conservative views are being censored.
In other words, you yourself have never once provided an explanation nor participated in a reasoned discussion.
You are constantly looking to play the victim card as some horribly oppressed person in this country because of your conservative views.
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Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
I occasionally post the censorship highlights of the week. Usually folks don’t want to talk about it. Which is fine. But I don’t demand responses, and then develop a case of tourette’s when someone does.
Re: Re: Re:3
No, you don’t. You whine about “conservative views” being “censored” from Twitter, then you disappear (which I expect you to do now) when asked about the exact and specific “conservative views” to which you’re referring. You also disappear whenever asked One Simple Question (“Do you believe the government should have the legal right to compel any privately owned interactive web service into hosting legally protected speech that the owners/operators of said service don’t want to host?”); to date, I’ve never gotten a straight yes-or-no answer out of you on that point.
You want to do a drive-by complaint about conservatives being “censored” on social media, but when pressed on the details, you up and disappear like a fart in the wind. Once—just once!—we’d all like you to stick around and answer our questions so we can have the conversation you always say you want.
But you’re going to be a coward and run as usual, because you know that most of us regular commenters can out-argue you and your fellow trolls every day of the week. And because you know that honest answers to our questions will do you no favors in terms of credibility—especially since we can always link back to your answers and hold you to account for them.
So run along, child. The grown folks are talking now.
Re: Re: Re:4
And to make natters worse, when confronted with the simple yes or no question, he also doesn’t want to respond.
Re: Re: Re:3
Stop pretending you care about censorship, NeoNazi.
You ARE one of them. Don’t even pretend otherwise.
Re: Re: Re:3
“I occasionally post the censorship highlights of the week”
You occasionally happen to state a name of the right
-wing poutrage du jour, which on the most cursory examination of the facts always turns out to be someone being banned for being a toxic bullying and possibly criminal asshole, not because of their political beliefs.
What you never do is provide any evidence that the latter is happening, nor do you address the immediate evidence that you’re full of shit, preferring instead to repeat the same lies next time as if you’d never been called out on your lies.
Please, provide some actual evidence of someone being censored, and that it has happened because of their beliefs and not their actions. You have provided exactly zero of these, despite hundreds of requests that you ignore, since you disappear from every thread as soon as people start responding to you with facts and questions.
Re: Re: Re:4
“banned for being a toxic bullying and possibly criminal asshole, not because of their political beliefs”
There’s a difference?
I thought that toxic and possibly criminal arseholishness, while not being confined to a single political party, was a key plank of one of our party’s platforms.
Re: Re: Re:
You keep using those words… I do not think any of them mean what you think they mean.
Re: Re: Re:
[Projects facts not in evidence]
Re: Re: Re:
I’m happy to have an explanation or a reasoned discussion, but how can we have that when you post laughably clueless things like “A simple declaration by the platform that they never heard of the guy aught to blow up the claim.”
That’s not how it works.
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Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
Fine, go ahead. You’ve never needed my permission to explain it. Nothing’s stopping you.
Re: Re: Re:3
The only thing stopping us from having a conversation with you is you disappearing whenever someone asks you a question you can’t answer without coming off as an even bigger asshole than you are.
Re: Re: Re:3 Bravely Sir Koby continues to run away
You’ve got real bold now that I stopped singing the song of your people.
Re: Re: Re:4
I think it’s high time we called for an encore…
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Re: Re: Re:3 Red State Dick
Mike’s about to get a Texas sized dick up his ass so he is a little upset.
Re: Re: Re:4
You two really need to get a room.
Re: Re: Re:5
I booked one, but when Koby showed up, he launched into a diatribe and then ran away when I challenged him with a salient and reasoned argument. 😉
Re: Re: Re:4
I’m sorry, but that costs extra, and you’ll have to take BDSM lessons before doing anything of that sort.
Re: Re: Re:3
I explained. That’s what this whole post is about. And you responded by showing you don’t know how civil procedure works at all.
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Re: Re: Re:4 Re:
You offered no explanation to my response to your concern about spam. In a likely situation where a moderator closes the account of a commercial spammer, which probably takes all of 60 seconds according to the timestamps, there isn’t any feasible way to link the spammer’s account with the handle “deezpillz411” to the litigant’s actual name in order to investigate his viewpoints. It’s pretty much a slam dunk case dismissal.
Your best explanation of how it wouldn’t be the case is just to serve up some profanity.
Re: Re: Re:5
Regardless of whether such a case would get dismissed, cases don’t simply get dismissed early. Even the most frivolous of lawsuits suck up months, if not years, of time and thousands (dare I say tens of thousands?) of dollars. SLAPPs (strategic lawsuits against public participation) exist because rich jerks understand that they can sue to waste people’s money without having to win the case. In fact, it’s because of Section 230 (and in different contexts, anti-SLAPP laws instead) that a ton of cases which would otherwise stay in court for an unnecessarily long time get dismissed early.
Let me say that again: Section 230 only gets cases dismissed early which would be ruled in favor of the defendant under the First Amemdment anyway. Section 230 exists to prevent jerks from wasting defendants’ time and money. It might not even be a straw man fallacy to say that people who want to repeal Section 230 don’t like how the First Amendment actually is (compared to how they wish the First Amendment were) and/or like being able to waste other people’s money out of spite.
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Re: Re: Re:6 Re:
There’s no first amendment right to engage in discrimination. But this does kind of get to the heart of the debate. Section 230 saves money by short-circuiting due process. The savings to court costs was seen as beneficial back 25 years ago when the few people getting getting moderated were along the lines of commercial spammers and porn pushers. Nowadays, moderation is sometimes being used as a political weapon, and more folks are viewing the tradeoff as problematic.
Re: Re: Re:7 'You can't kick me out for swearing at kids, that's discrimination!'
There’s no first amendment right to engage in discrimination
Who and what is being ‘discriminated’ against, be specific.
Re: Re: Re:7
Against certain viewpoints or specific people? Yes, there absolutely is.
Re: Re: Re:8
That’s crazy talk that is, what next, stores and/or private property owners being allowed to kick people out if those people start swearing at them or otherwise acting in an objectionable manner? Everyone knows if someone enters your property you have absolutely no right to tell them to leave because that would be discrimination.
Re: Re: Re:9
they get really upset about the “no shirt, no shoes” thing.
Re: Re: Re:7
In the real world, the exclusively fraudulent lawsuits section 230 protects against are the violations.
Re: Re: Re:7
Freedom of association allows discrimination outside of some business relationships.
Re: Re: Re:8
And even within some business relationships. 🙁
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Re: Re: Re:4 This Law is Rather Streight Foward
This law is straight forward enough. Write specific terms of service, correctly cite you terms of service, and have an avenue for curing violations of the contract by both sides. This is pretty simple contract law. And its the norm for most other industries with the exception of BigTech.
Sorry you are going to have to grow up and act like an adult you manchild.
Re: Re: Re:5
Not actually a requirement under contract law, at least regarding specificity.
Which wouldn’t necessarily prevent expensive discovery.
This is also not a requirement under contract law..
[citation needed]
[citation needed]
Re: Re: Re:5
What are you smoking? Big Tech includes Facebook, Twitter, etc., and all their TOS function in the same way as any other legally binding contract.
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Re: Re: Re:6 No They Dont
No they don’t. They are intentionally ambiguous. Mike has even defended their need to be ambiguous. They don’t have procedures to cure. Most other industries have laws that regulate how their contracts are to be written BigTech is an exception.
Re: Re: Re:7
There is nothing in contract law that requires non-ambiguity or procedures to cure a breach.
I’ve seen contracts written by the federal government that have intentional ambiguity and no procedures to cure.
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Re: Re: Re:8
Jesus christ you fucking moron manchild. We know!!! You are a fan of Mike. That means you are a fucking child. You have never had a real job. YOu have never owned real property. The real world is a foreign concept to you you fucking child!
“The legal right to cure is a principle founded in contract law that allows one party in a contract, who has defaulted under a contract provision, to remedy their default by taking steps to ensure compliance or otherwise, cure the default.”
https://adamsleclair.law/blog/notice-of-default-and-opportunity-to-cure-considerations-and-limitations-to-examine-when-a-contracting-party-fails-to-uphold-its-part-of-the-contract/#:~:text=The%20legal%20right%20to%20cure,or%20otherwise%2C%20cure%20the%20default.
Re: Re: Re:9
The author of the blog post points out very good reasons why you might want to have procedures to cure spelled out in your contracts (at least, for construction contracts in New York), and that it’s a good idea to provide an opportunity to cure, and also gives possible consequences if you don’t, but nowhere in that article does he say that it is required by law to be included in the contract and/or that a contract is invalid if it doesn’t include procedures to cure.
Thank you for providing supporting information that refutes your claim.
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Re: Re: Re:10 The Stupidity is Strong
“but nowhere in that article does he say that it is required by law”
“The legal right to cure is a principle founded in contract law”
This stupidity strong with this one. Id say “shut up child the adults are talking” but we know most of Mike’s Misfits are manchildren who are only adults in the legal sense of the word.
Re: Re: Re:11
That it’s a principle founded in contract law doesn’t make it a requirement. That author also states the “right” to cure can be waived and depending on the contract, doesn’t even make sense.
If it’s required to be present for a contract to be valid, how can it be waived or nonsensical?
Insofar as your argument supports the idea that a method of curing contract breach is a good thing to include in the contract language, I actually agree with you. However, the claim that contracts in general must include procedures to cure? That’s just completely incorrect.
Re: Re: Re:3
Not like you’d actually stay and actually listen or learn.
Your mind’s already made up with regards to this issue.
You might as well be honest and claim Mike’s gonna get arrested for having a different opinion than the NeoNazis you support.
Re: Re:
Well, he’s got a point, really. For example, a prospective employee telling someone they’re not going to be hired because they’re Asian is a hell of a lot better than telling them they’re not going to be hired because they participated in the Autism Challenge on TikTok. /s
Re: Re:
To be fair, the Fifth Circuit had no fucking clue how to tell a website from an internet provider, so. For some, reality can be hard to grasp.
It is recipe to cut the US off from the Internet, as nobody can afford to employ enough lawyers to appear in every court in Texas on the same day, or the staff needed to manage those cases.
Re:
But now if you post anything, anywhere, on the remaining internet, are you not in violation of the law, as you used a system that discriminates base on location…
The "Texas" view
I think, to comply with this law, companies are going to have to offer a “curated view” and a “Texas View”, similar to what we have on Techdirt with the spam comments hidden but available if you feel like wading through the muck.
That way, everyone has the right to say everything…
Re:
Well, providing a “Texas View” would seem to run afoul of the statute:
(a) 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…
(3) a user’s geographic location in this state or any part of this state.
So, the only way out seems to be to have no business presence in Texas, and even then the company probably gets hauled into court over and over again.
Re: Re: Is an alternate view really censorship?
Look at Kobe’s posts today. He’s not really being censored, his posts are most definitely present and anyone can see what he has said, but he’s just not in “Techdirt’s recommended best posts”, which is the default, condensed view of the comment section.
Of course, if you are Kobe (and evidently also if you are a batshit republican lawmaker), you haven’t figured out that all platforms have to make choices about what to display in what order, if at all, because there is simply too much content being constantly created to show it all.
Re: Re: Re:
ah Clem’s point may have been that serving a “Texas view” would interfere with the “ability [of a user outside of Texas] to receive the expression of another person based on… a user’s [(possibly the former user’s]) geographic location in this state”. The following may be a stretch, but moderation based on “the user is not in this state” vacuously falls under moderation based on location in the state the same way “freedom to speak” requires “freedom to stay silent”.
The law says (or can be read as saying) that companies can’t stop doing business in Texas. I wonder if they’ll try anyway. Declare that “your regulations have made it too expensive to operate in your state” and roll the dice. Daphne Keller made similar remarks:
Re:
If they don’t have any physical presence in Texas and have blocked access entirely, is there even anything Texas can do in practical terms? Would a federal court take up a state law case where the defendant has no presence whatsoever in the state and has not sent anything to the state? Does Texas have the practical ability to enforce a judgement in state court outside it’s borders?
I guess they could attempt to squeeze via banks that have branches in Texas but I think that would get pretty deep into Commerce Clause territory.
Re: Re:
They can try to extradite you to Texas. They can arrest you if you set foot in Texas. They can arrest you if you are a flight that lands for a stop-over in Texas. They can arrest you if you are on a flight that is diverted to Texas. They can arrest you if you are illegally or legally abducted and release in Texas. They can seize any propety you own in Texas (including a car registered to you that a friend/relative is driving through the state.
They can wait until they have a friend in the Whitehouse and then have the feds deliver you.
So, as you can see, there really is nothing to worry about, is there?
Re: Re: Re:
At that point, they might as well mobilize the Texas National Guard and start Civil War 2.
Americans on one side, Republicans on the other.
question: if companies no longer have a first amendment right… does that mean Citizen’s United is thereby illegal as well?
Re:
Yes but only when they donate to causes republicans don’t like
Just Comply Fully
Would be kind of fun to see all social media companies just comply (only in texas of course). Give the residents of texas what their elected officials want them to have: An endless feed of nonsense. No “complex” algorithm, just one that shows you every post based on time from every single person (can’t be biased!). No blocking of spam bots, just deliver it all!!!
Re:
This is a good idea in theory, but people would scream at the websites for letting in so much spam. I’d bet that a vast majority of users wouldn’t know that websites were forced to change their rules because elected officials.
Re: Re:
Which is why you warn first and then open the floodgates.
Everyone gets signed out, and on the sign-in page is a large message telling users that thanks to the law the platform will no longer moderate anything but flat out illegal content because doing so will run afoul of the law and get them sued. Below that provide the contact details for the relevant politicians and tell users that if they don’t enjoy the new experience they should probably contact those people and tell them to get rid of the law.
With a warning like that anyone complaining and blaming the site(and there would be plenty I’m sure) look like fools since they were warned about what they were about to step into and who was responsible and ignored both.
Re: Re: Re:
Since when has “looking like fools” stopped anybody on the right?
Re: Re: Re:2
There will always be fools and the dishonest but so long as people remember to constantly point it out(‘The warning was right there and it spelled out that they were doing this despite not wanting to and why’) it would make it harder for them to be taken seriously when doing so.
Re: Re: Re:
In that notice, name every judge that voted for the law, leaving out the one dissenter. They’ll soon learn what is and isn’t a website. 😉
Re: Re: Re:
Your suggestion is a good one, but people who rely on screen readers might miss the message if they are doing the same sign-in they have done many times before. They’ll be confused to log in and be inundated with much more spam than usual. (However, I don’t personally know a person who needs a screenreader, so I may be mistaken about whether such a person would be likely to skip the message while performing their routine navigations.)
Re: Re: Re:2
If a screen reader can’t handle the text on a pop-up, then it’s time to update the screen reader or get a new one.
Re:
^^^ This.
Have it apply to any IP which geolocates to Texas.
These fucking simple-minded nutjobs think they’re being coy. Give them what they want and let the people annoy every single fuckwit who thought this was a good idea.
Sensible people can only hope that the covered companies turn off their services in Texas for even a day or two. But they probably won’t have the guts. However, maybe even a credible public threat will bring about an agreement to have implementation delayed until a full court review.
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Re: UNITED States of America
Too bad its the UNITED states of America and a Texas court can just issue a judgement against Facebook a cool billion for geo-blocking Texas and because of “full faith and credit” execute the judgement and take the money directly from Fakebook’s bank accounts and there aint a god damn ting California can do about it.
Re: Re:
There is so much wrong in this comment it baffles me as to how incredibly stupid you are.
I mean it was evident when you confused a public house (a pub) with government funded housing, public housing.
Then you claimed that restaurants and bars needed some special license in order to forceable remove somebody form their premisses. I have asked many times for you to provide a link to any state’s laws that state this, but do don’t so we know you are full of 💩!
And to top it off, you don’t believe that trespass laws exist that allow me to use force to kick you the fuck out of my property the moment I tell you that you are trespassing. Hell, most states will allow me to shoot you in the dick and nothing will happen to me.
So your stupidity is either something you were born into, or, over the years of listening to Alex Jones and Rush Limbaugh, your mind has turned to shit.
Now you come out with all these posts about violent gay rape fantasies. You are just one fucked up piece of human garbage.
I truly feel sorrow for anybody that has to claim you as a family member. You seemed to be relegated to being the creepy uncle that you would never leave alone with your child lest you end up raping them.
Maybe you should just bow out now and never return.
Re: Re: Re:
And he’s also harassing regulars on the site too.
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Re: Re: Re:2 You Deserve It
Mike’s misfits deserve it. You guys are scum of the earth.
Re: Re: Re:3
Hey Koby!
If this asshole’s free speech is anything like what you’re getting banned for on Twitter, it’s not your views at all.
Chozen’s a fucking asshole. That’s why he loathes moderation. God forbid an asshole can’t spew it’s shit out someplace other than a toilet.
Stop being assholes and you’ll have fewer problems. It really is that simple. This isn’t about politics – it’s about you dickheads being who you are.
Re: Re: Re:3
Where’s your proof of this assertion? After all, extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.
In other words: Put up or shut up
Re: Re: Re:3
Trump’s still not going to kiss you on the lips bro.
Re: Re: Re:3
You guys are scum of the earth.
I’d like to suggest a JVC DLA-N5 to replace your old projector that’s so clearly broken.
Re: Re: Re:3
I’m in good company then.
Now please, get the fuck out. Even 4chan hates your NeoNazi ass.
Re: Re:
Here’s the thing: if I don’t reside in Texas and refuse to do business in Texas or with people in Texas, I don’t have to follow Texas’s state or local laws.
Re: Re: Re:
But if you provide a service available in other states and previously available in Texas, you could be sued for discriminating against Texans based on location. That’s the most insidious part of the proposed legislation.
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Re: Re: Re:2 Its Brilliant
No its brilliant. Facebook etc. has been able to say that they would provide service in certain countries and because of how international law and baking works they can get away with that. Within the US however that is a much harder proposition.
Because of full faith and credit you can live in California and I can live in Texas. I can sue you in Texas under Texas law you can stamp your feet screaming I cant do that all you want. But I’ll just win default judgement when you fail to appear and the next day you will go to your bank in California and find all your money is gone and in my bank account in Texas.
Re: Re: Re:3
I can sue you in Texas under Texas law you can stamp your feet screaming I cant do that all you want.
Then the converse should also be true, right genius?
Re: Re: Re:3
Sir, I’m going to suggest you speak with a psychiatrist. You’re in obvious need of help.
Re: Re: Re:4
To be honest, a priest might be more helpful. The guy’s clearly possessed. 😉
Re: Re: Re:3
Again, if I do no business in Texas, then Texas is the improper venue, so I can move to transfer to a court within my state, where I can then properly move to dismiss on the grounds that I—as someone neither domiciled in, located within, nor engaging in commerce within Texas—am not subject to Texas law and so cannot be held to have violated it. That’s why it’s a state law, not a federal one: only those within the state or engaged in business within that state are subject to the law.
Also, I’m pretty sure this part is unconstitutional. Only the federal government can regulate interstate commerce, so the government of one state cannot legally force a business in another state to do business in the first state.
Re: Re: Re:4
So was Jan 6.
I’m still waiting for the entire Republican Party to be arrested for that.
I’ll even take the shitheads who were endorsing that.
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Re: Re: Re:4 The Court In Which it is Filed Will Decide
“Again, if I do no business in Texas, then Texas is the improper venue, so I can move to transfer to a court within my state”
Which is not going to happen. We hate you. Understand that. Red America of the country hates northern California. You are not getting a transfer of jurisdiction.
Re: Re: Re:5
Do you have any arguments or evidence to support that contention?
I don’t really care, nor is that even remotely relevant.
Though, who are you to speak for anyone other than yourself? Especially when the next sentence shows that the alleged hate appears to be based on a false assumption.
Ummm… I’m not from California at all. Not even close. Nor did I ever mention California. You just assumed I was talking about northern California. I’m not even from a blue state at all. You assumed that entirely on your own.
It is also still completely irrelevant how “Red America” feels about me or about Northern California. This is about legal jurisdiction, and Texas has transferred cases to California and other jurisdictions in the past.
You have offered no justification at all for this claim. The only evidence you provided is evidence that you like to jump to conclusions, ignore the law when it doesn’t suit you, and have an irrational hate for Northern California.
Do you have any better arguments, preferably grounded in the law rather than your or others’ personal distaste for half of a state that I wasn’t even talking about?
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Re: Re: Re:6
“You have offered no justification at all for this claim. The only evidence you provided is evidence that you like to jump to conclusions, ignore the law when it doesn’t suit you, and have an irrational hate for Northern California.”
Its simple law. The court in which the case if filed will decide if it has jurisdiction.
Texas state courts will not be sending the case to Cali or any other state.
Re: Re: Re:5
We hate you. Understand that.
And yet, all of this legislation nonsense is centered around you people being able to go where we are.
Don’t you find that kind of a stupid thing to be strongly advocating for, given how much you hate us?
Assholes. All of you people. All you want to do is to be a dickhead in someone else’s house, which coincidentally is where all the people you hate are.
Just put anything that would normally be “censored” behind a paywall and call it “our ‘premium’ service with no boundaries on conversation”.
You wanna ‘play hard’ you gotta ‘pay hard’…
This might make paywalls a good thing too :p
This might be a coordinated timing....
Since this seems to be rushed, it is possible someone wanted this law in effect for something. Just saying that there are protests scheduled this weekend. If site cannot moderated then people could abuse sites to do “bad things” that would not normally be allowed.
Could be another reason to rush it out like this and I am pretty sure I don’t want to find out, though I will.
Re:
Pride is coming up.
So is the official release of the Roe decision, and a bunch of primaries too, IIRC.
Would an illegal posting be restored?
So let me get this straight: websites are no longer allowed to block anything because the person who posted it might get offended and sue?
And if someone posts something illegal, the site has to remove it within 48 hours.
So if someone posts something illegal and it was removed, can they sue to have it restored and claim it was removed because they’re a Republican, I mean because “of their viewpoint”?
If so, then what’s to stop activists from posting garbage and spam on every Texas politicians Facebook page? Sorry, but according to this law, Facebook can’t remove the junk any more.
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And if the politician is using it for official purposes, they cannot block the users spamming their page. Facebook could remove the content, or ban the user, but the Politician can’t; isn’t the first amendment wonderful.
Re: Re:
Blocking isn’t an option, but the politician can still mute (Facebook calls it Snooze) the user. The politician would still have to mute manually, though.
Re: Re: Re:
Wouldn’t that lead to a First Amendment complaint that the politician is ignoring the people?
Re: Re: Re:
And if enough people spam them, that will get tedious rapidly, and they, or whoever is running their account will have difficulty getting to the serious postings.
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Re: Re: Re: Nope
Not according to Trump v. Thompson.
Re: Re: Re:2
The case where his claim of absolute immunity was denied?
What in the fuck are you even talking about anymore, you ignorant pile of pig shit? Every fucking day you come on here, drop irrelevant horseshit, and then call everyone else ignorant for not understanding what the fuck you’re talking about.
You’re an example of the Dunning-Kreuger effect at it’s peak. Congratulations! What’s next? A MOCA test that proves you’re some kind of genius?
Re: Re: Re:2
Do you mean this case? No wonder you didn’t provide a link to it! 😀
'So long as this law is here we're not going to be.'
Honestly with a law this bad it seems like affected platforms would be fools not to pull out of the state entirely and take the risk that someone would try to sue them for refusing to offer their ‘product’ there, as the alternative is going to be them getting sued on a daily if not hourly basis as all the while their platforms turn into cesspits and people and advertisers leave.
Losing out on an entire state’s users and the profits to be made from them is bad, but if they stay they’re going to lose a lot more than that so in this case the ‘better’ bad option would seem to be to cut their loses and just tell texas ‘no’.
So to follow the law every social media website will turn into 4 chan full of weird extreme content ,and spam, or qanon fake news weird conpsiracy theorys, how does law help anyone except weirdos, extremists and spammers and lawyers looking for work ,
even moderate conservative users on facebook wont
want to use a service thats full of spam, fake news, and extreme content,
Does this law not violate the 1st amendment, and section 230 ?
Re:
Or child porn.
I’m sure the NeoNazis will lie through their teeth and say this was not intended.
Even 4chan HATES child porn.
And there’s /pol/. 4chan also hates /pol/ as it is currently. Which is what you described. No thanks to these fucking NeoNazis.
Texas also has a very strong anti-SLAPP law. So while a plaintiff may make such a claim against the platform, what then happens when the platform files a motion to dismiss under the TX anti-SLAPP law arguing the “legal action is based on or is in response to a party’s exercise of the right of free speech, right to petition, or right of association”…then the burden shifts to the plaintiff to bring forward “clear and specific evidence [of] a prima facie case for each essential element of the claim in question.”
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The politicians rush through a law that removes social media from ant-slapp protection.
Re: Re:
Ah, so they pull a reverse florida, instead of companies they liked(at the time) getting exceptions it’s ones they don’t like.
So this law, apart from the unbelievable hassle it’s going to cause website owners, is going to further entrench the isolation of vulnerable people in that state. Those people looking for support, information, like-minded individuals about being trans, needing birth control, escaping from domestic violence, counteracting racism and police brutality, will find the fora they could turn to, utterly swamped by shitbirds like the one commenting on the previous post. Every comment the ones seeking help and advice on any topic will be met by hundreds which harass, abuse, threaten, and intimidate, and so will those by anyone trying to offer help.
Any site offering facts will be unable to function without turning off all comments. Which doesn’t make them worthless, but it deprives the vulnerable of a community which could save their lives.
This is the ultimate aim, of course. Not allowing fascists to let their freak flags fly, because they have plenty of places to do that unchallenged, but stopping the victims of hate and fascism from escaping and becoming stronger.
I guess the answer will have to be, if this revolting law is preserved, building lots and lots of micro networks which fall under the user level threshold (until the fascists lower it), on which they can meet and talk in safety. But they still have to find that information and use it discreetly, and this law will do everything it can to stop that happening.
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Re: What You Really Mean
Of course what you really mean is people will be free to say biologic men shouldn’t be allowed to compete in woman’s sports.
The sensibilities of an infinitely small minority should not be what dictates the speech of everyone else.
Re: Re:
The sensibilities of an infinitely small minority should not be what dictates the speech of everyone else.
So why the fuck don’t you assholes shut the fuck up, then?
Re: Re: Re:
And there you are trying to dictate the speech of others, by aggressively telling them to shut up. You are also displaying an attitude to others that make you unwelcome on many platforms, so why don’t you go to Gab or truthsocial to express your opinions.
Re: Re: Re:2
You are also displaying an attitude to others that make you unwelcome on many platforms, so why don’t you go to Gab or truthsocial to express your opinions.
So I can read the ramblings of other fucking idiots like Chozen? No thanks. There’s enough of you whiny assholes everywhere else – I don’t need to go to one of your alt-shitpits where reality is optional.
It’s a nice try to portray him as some kind of victim, but a cursory glance through his comment history on this post alone shows that he certainly is not. And if he can’t take it like he gives it, then he shouldn’t have engaged the way he does.
It’s a consequence of his actions, something you people just don’t seem to have a concept of. Well, that and self-awareness.
Re: Re: Re:2
Because he’s moved on to harassing regulars.
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Re: Re: Re:3 Special Class
As if mike’s 6 misfits are some special class. You are scumbags. Nothing but worthless pathetic pieces of shit who play soggy biscuit with each other because you losers have nothing better to do on a Friday night.
Re: Re: Re:4
Not everyone shares your erotic predilections, Chozen.
Re: Re: Re:4
You have still not provided evidence that only 6 people disagree with you here.
Re: Re:
Something which—to my knowledge—is not banned on any major platform, so no, that is not what they mean. There are some kinds of transphobic speech—mostly deadnaming and/or misgendering individuals—that do get banned (much like with lots of other forms of bigotry), but the specific opinion that transwomen should not be allowed to participate in women’s sports is not banned on any platforms I’m aware of.
And they don’t. The owners of a platform are dictating what speech (and which speakers) they will or will not host on their privately-owned platform, and—in some cases—that may be influenced by the sensibilities of a tiny minority, who are certainly allowed to express their opinions on what any given platform should or should not host. However, that only dictates where everyone else can say certain things; they can still say them all they want somewhere else.
Re: Re:
Of course men shouldn’t compete in women’s sports. Whoever said they should?
Free clue: trans women are women. ‘Nuff said.
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Re: Re: Re:
Transwomen are men.
Re: Re: Re:2
… says nobody who isn’t mentally ill.
Re: Re:
“Of course what you really mean is people will be free to say biologic men shouldn’t be allowed to compete in woman’s sports.”
I see you don’t actually respond to anything I wrote, but instead chose a strawman to attack.
People are free to say they don’t want transmen in their female sports, although the kind of people who say this kind of thing (a) couldn’t name a female sports person to save their lives (b) have no idea what is involved in MtF transitioning and (c) don’t care what ‘biologic’ sports women have to say on the issue (because the vast majority of them aren’t affected and aren’t bothered).
They are also free to be told they are nasty little transphobic bigots who need to get some basic education on exactly how varied human sexual expression is and how vast a range of bodies participate in sports of all kinds while still being cisgendered.
What you want to see is anyone struggling with their lives in any way, subjected to bullying and threats and abuse merely because some people enjoy hurting others. For example, you, who are clearly a deeply troubled person, were to try and reach out for advice and help about your sexual urges (some of which are quite natural, even if you were brought up to believe being gay was evil, and some of which are really disturbing, like your rape fantasies), you should be able to do so and be treated with sympathy and respect while you work through them. Instead, the Texas law would drive you back to your sad, solitary, friendless life in your parents’ spare room or converted garage, where you would be forced to deal with your troubled psyche by spending hours each day posting shit on Techdirt.
Fortunately, Texas isn’t the entirety of America, or the world, so you can still go somewhere where you can find help and even love, and if you are attacked for expressing your real sexual nature, then on a good website with decent, you will receive some support and protection.
Or you could go to Parler or Gab or Truth.social for the opposite experience. It’s really your choice, matey. I want you to be free to choose, because I don’t believe governments should enable bullying or abuse or harm, and I believe private companies should be able to protect their users in the way they judge best.
How does that sound?
Re: Re: Re: correction
“People are free to say they don’t want transmen in their female sports”
I mean to write transwomen, of course.
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Re: Re: Re:2
Interesting, because transmen should not be allowed to play in competitive sports either. We do not allow players who have taken body-altering medications to play competitive sports, and ban them when we discover they have done so secretly.
Re: Re: Re:3
“We do not allow players who have taken body-altering medications to play competitive sports”
So, you don’t want anyone who takes insulin, heart medication, caffeine, aspirin or even paracetamol to play sport? Are you aware of what medications do? They alter body functions. That how they work.
I mean, if you take Metamucil to make you poo, you’re altering your body functions. And if you’re on a weight loss/weight gain diet, you’re altering your body. Anyone on birth control is altering their body. So is anyone drinking a Coca Cola, or eating chocolate, or just eating full stop.
If you’re so worry about ‘natural, better ban anyone who’s wearing contact lenses, or who’s been vaccinated against chickenpox.
I think the safest way is to make sure that only newborns play sports, don’t you agree? With their pristine little bodies, untainted by the scientific method? Better hope their parents didn’t take any drugs for pain, or to make the birth safe, in case that lingers in the baby’s body.
Not only are you a bigot, you’re an ignorant bigot.
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Re: Re: Re:4 Yep
“So, you don’t want anyone who takes insulin, heart medication, caffeine, aspirin or even paracetamol to play sport? Are you aware of what medications do? They alter body functions. That how they work.”
Having been a college athlete the list is long and extensive. Yes caffeine is on the banned substances list. If you piss beyond 15 micrograms per milliliter you test positive.
Insulin is not banned because of treatment for diabetics but I did have a diabetic teammate who would modify his dosage in season for a competitive advantage.
Re: Re: Re:5
So what you’re saying is that we do allow players who have taken body-altering medications to play competitive sports.
And even more than that, it’s not against the rules for them to use that for competitive advantage?
Just stop talking to you, you foul, stupid bigoted piece of garbage.
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Re: Re: Re:6
That is what you get out of it.
You are simply a moron. Caffeine is limited in such that if you take amount nessacary to get a competitive advantage you test positive.
15 micrograms per milliliter is about 8-10 cups of coffee right before the test. Outside the bounds of normal consumption but very much within the norms if someone is taking it as a stimulant for competitive advantage.
Re: Re: Re:7
You have in no way demonstrated that “body-altering medications” == “competitive advantage.
You just assume, without the smallest medical knowledge, that trans women on hormone replacement treatment are somehow cheating. And yet you admit that sports people using a whole range of perfectly ordinary medications or ingesting perfectly common food stuffs – like coffee – are (a) competing legally while taking “body-altering medications” and (b) are allowed to do so if it doesn’t give them a competitive advantage [unless (c) they aren’t caught.]
Since all the panic is about trans women in sport (since no one gives a shit if trans mens compete against cis men), what you’re saying is that if “biologic [sic] men” take HRT as part of transitioning, then that’s okay. Because HRT for MtF transitioning has the opposite effect of giving them the competitive edge:
Effect of gender affirming hormones on athletic performance in transwomen and transmen: implications for sporting organisations and legislators
[Trans women were still faster than their cis counterparts, but this was not a study specifically on athletes. There’s a lot of other factors which contribute to performance, strength, and speed, and top athletes are outliers in the population. Ironically trans men on HRT basically improved to the same baseline as cis men. The study demonstrated that transitioning individuals do not harm the fitness of the military at all.]
There’s no question of trans women competing covertly or taking this important medication secretly, so they’re not even trying to defraud other competitors. The only time actual men have been passed off as fake women for fraudulent purposes, was by the old Soviet Union. Blatant Russian misbehaviour has led to decades of misery and discrimination for cis female and intersex athletes like Caster Semanya who don’t conform to a narrow definition of what a female body should be like. Actual trans athletes are not and have not ever been the problem in sport.
Sport should be about people playing for enjoyment and health, not used as a way to terrorise and shame a microscopically small part of the total population, let alone the population who actually want to play same-sex sport.
Stop talking to me, you foul, stupid, dishonest, bigoted piece of garbage.
Re: Re: Re:7
https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/55/11/577
“Effect of gender affirming hormones on athletic performance in transwomen and transmen: implications for sporting organisations and legislators”
Re: Re:
What site prevents you from respectfully espousing this opinion? Or it it the being respectful bit that you object to?
There is literally nowhere where that happens. You seem to forget that support for trans people extends well beyond them. There are many, many more people that don’t want the social media sites they use to allow bigotry and bullying towards trans people and other minorities and oppressed groups. Websites decide what policies will make the greatest number of people want to participate, and that usually, but not always, means excluding the bigots, bullies and assholes. It’s the sensibilities of the majority that influence the speech a site allows.
Re: Re: Re: Do what I say, not what I do
Social media platforms are first and foremost businesses, if the majority of users on a platform were bigots and/or bigot friendly and the advertisers were fine selling to that crowd then overt bigotry would have a free pass, if that’s not the case and those sort of people are the minority then bigotry is likely to be seen and treated as against the rules of the site.
Given that the ‘the minority shouldn’t be allowed to determine acceptable speech’ argument is in fact a delightful hypocritical own goal because that’s exactly what they are trying to do, force the majority to tolerate the minority of bigots and let them dictate acceptable behavior rather than acting according to what the majority on that platform have decided is acceptable behavior/content.
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Re: Re: Re:2
Correct. Those who value free speech value it more than they do the comfort of listeners or the amity of platforms. We urge the platforms to be more supportive of free speech and less of viewpoint-based censorship. Being first and foremost a business does not immunize a company from criticism for violating fundamental principles of the country in which they’re based.
Re: Re: Re:3
Platforms are amiable to free speech within reason, but your view of free speech is the same as a bully’s – ie you want to force yourself and your speech on others against their wishes, you want to force others to carry your speech against their wishes.
Your whole argument boils down to forcing others. So tell us, what’s so free about forcing someone? What makes your rights more important than other peoples rights?
Re: Re: Re:4
If you’re hosting an open gathering and someone shows up and starts loudly swearing at other guests you either show them the ‘door’ or you see everyone who doesn’t feel like putting up with that leave.
‘No consequences for abusive and/or toxic behavior’ is not supporting free speech, it’s granting the assholes the right to shut down anyone they don’t like and silencing anyone who might have spoken up but doesn’t feel like being on the receiving end of harassment for doing so and/or being around abrasive jackasses.
Re: Re: Re:3
Why keep spouting the deranged lie that companies are doing that in the first place?
Re: Re:
So please, stop trying to be such a dictatorial, insufferable little fuckshit and leave.
Instead of harassing the regulars and the owner of the site.
And no, even if I were working in those industries, I’ll not accept any money from you.
Re: Re:
lol Chozen. Don’t worry your pretty little head, women are not coming into your safe spaces just to fuck with an insecure manchild like you. You’re not nearly so important that icky sticky women will pump themselves full of hormones to mess with your head, because you’re the kind of deluded, egotistical fucktard who’d dock a choirboy just to feel powerful if you weren’t kept under lock and key.
Go back to wanking about your Trump fantasies on R34.
Hey Mike!
Are you sure that’s the 5th Circuit, and not the 5th Column?
Asking for a friend
Does the Texas state government operate what could be described as a social media platform with on the order of 50 million users? It would be an ideal place to test the efficacy of the new law.
Re:
If the law goes into effect, troll the official FaceBook pages of the Texas government. If your comment is removed, hit them with a first amendment claim, because it is an established first amendment violation for government officials to censor, that is remove comments, from official feeds.
I can’t wait until every Texas public official’s Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and all other social media accounts they have are inundated with goatse and 2girls1cup.
Then we get to watch the shitshow begin!!
🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿
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It’s time to bring back all the classics—Goatse, Tubgirl, basically every grossout meme that 4channers can find. What have we got to lose except our minds? 🤣
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Oh, maybe it’s time to start talking about hentai as well.
I’ve got a few classics ready…
Re: Time to find an IP spoofer.
There’s a certain series of images from goatse.cx I want to post. }:D
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I’m gonna need to ask Dr. Picollo for the Texas-sized EXTRA STRENGTH Daily Dose.
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Then they’ll pivot to ‘ZOMG – what about the children? How can we let them see this?’
They’ve got to keep the victimhood thing going or all their shit falls apart.
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Same as utility providers
Mike and left are out to lunch and the ad hom title shows this
This is the same type of law that tells power companies when and how they can shut off what
The law forces these concentrated private powers to BE Neutral in moderation
And no you cant threaten someone that is covered by otherer laws
lol
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While power and water, along with roads etc, are essential utilities, social media is not, and use of a particular service even less so.
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Says an unempathic individual that has never been suicidal to the point where it’s impossible to talk on the phone, but still possible to seek support online.
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I am a sympathetic person. Social media can be essential for some people, but in the broader scheme of things, social media is not nearly as necessary for survival as are utilities like water/sewage service and electric power.
Re: Re: Re:2
You don’t seem very sympathetic when you completely miss that online support can be just as essential for life in the short term as water is in the long term. Or do you not believe in the goal of suicide prevention?
Re: Re: Re:2
If electric power is essential for life, then explain biodiversity.
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If a site is that important to someone, they can always just follow the site’s rules and not be an asshole. This is not that hard!
Somehow though I think the crossover between “conservatives” shown the door for being an asshole and genuinely suicidal users is probably very small.
Re: Re: Re:2
In my hypothetical, the inability to seek support online would be curtailed not by an individual’s inability to follow the rules, but by the website following the rules created by this new precedent. Sorry you missed it.
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You can seek help online without having access to a specific social media platform.
Meanwhile, an actually empathetic individual would be more concerned about the cyberbullying and other methods that drive people to suicide in the first place, which these harebrained schemes will ensure are able to continue unhindered without the platform being able to do anything about the people doing such things.
Re: Re: Re:2
Under the proposed legislation, there wouldn’t be any websites with user generated content because it doesn’t target just social media. Additionally, depression can arise and be severe without online bullying. As Autie said, you lack empathy.
Re: Re: Re:3
It’s not bullying if woke people find it acceptable. Chanty Binx and Chris-chan said so.
Re: Re: Re:
If you are claiming that Internet access is becoming an essential utility, I would agree with you. That does not however make any or all social media site am essential utility, and that is what is being used as an excuse for bigots to force their way onto popular sites. Also, sites intended to help those feeling suicidal do not come under the heading of social media, as the enable private conversations, not public conversations.
Re: Re: Re:2
Go back to elementary school, learn reading comprehension, then read the text of the proposed law again. The law threatens not just social media sites, but all websites with user generated content, including support forums. As a Texan whose sister has been rushed into hospital three times following suicide attempts, I find that very threatening.
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How is Twitter a public utility provider?
If Twitter shut it’s doors tomorrow, guess what will happen…
The internet will continue to function and citizens the world over will still go about their daily lives.
How is social media more imporant as a public utility than your ISP? Without your ISP, you don’t get any internet. Without Facebook, well, you might actually get something done with your time.
For all the people who think that social media is the same as a public utility, I pose one simple question:
If your house is on fire, are you going to Tweet, Facebook post, Instagram post, or TicTok a video in order to reach the fire department, or will just pick up the phone and call the fire department.
Also, please do an experiment for us, go home, shut off your gas, electricity, and water, now try to make dinner using Facebook.
Social media could die tomorrow and the world will still function.
If the electrical grid were to collapse, just think about the sheer death and destruction that would become of that compared to Twitter shutting down.
I could go on and on about how silly it is to argue that social media is a public utility, but I think I have done enough to bury your argument already.
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If anything, the world would probably function better without social media. 👀
Re: Re: Re:
Amen to that.
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Would you also be happy without Techdirt? Because the proposed law targets that too.
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I mean, the article explains why this is wrong. It allows users to sue for merely claiming that any moderation was done over viewpoints, even if it wasn’t and was done “neutrally.”
So why are you lying?
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Because he’s not lying, he’s a NeoNazi.
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… said nobody literate, ever.
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The trick with using fancy terms like ‘ad hom’ is learning what they mean first. Otherwise you look dumb for using them in completely the wrong way.
It is trying to be that, but it will fail because social media is nothing like a utility. If social media is as important to you as power and water then you seriously need to reevaluate the priorities in your life. See an addiction councillor maybe.
Power companies do moderation now? Like on their website feedback sections maybe?
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Of I wanted to be neutral, then I’d commit suicide, because there’s no fucking way I can do that. Unless I’m either dead or a NeoNazi.
And I clearly will never be a NeoNazi.
If only...
Tomorrow’s Headline: Texas sues every US Citizen and company that doesn’t live/operate in Texas for violating Texas law
Next Week’s Headline: France, Spain and Mexico all refuse to accept USA’s return of Texas
Maybe not such a bad thing
It wouldn’t be a bad thing for Twitter, Facebook, etc. to be forced to block users in MAGA / Q / misinformation bastions like Texas.
Crafty people would use VPNs to get around it, but it could help with the “friends spreading bullshit” problem on sites such as Facebook.
Shocked just shocked that a man who hurt his states economy & was cheered on by the people he was actively screwing over could think this is a good thing.
I look forward to the forthcoming backpeddling once they figure out these rules apply to them too and they violate them so much more than other people.
Are you quite sure?
(b) This section applies regardless of whether the viewpoint is expressed on a social media platform or through any other medium.
So, let’s break this down. It says that a website cannot “censor” (by which it clearly means moderate) based on the user’s viewpoint or geographic location. And it applies even if that viewpoint doesn’t occur on the website.
Actually, the above doesn’t mean that the section applies even if a viewpoint doesn’t occur on a given website. It means that the section applies to all websites that allow user-generated content, whether or not they can be considered social media. Basically, this section is targeting Techdirt and other blogs as well as Facebook and Twitter.
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Re: Much Needed
Much needed section. Saddly BigTech decided to become our off-line nanny as well, banning people for things not even said on their platform. Karl Benjamin and Milo Yiannopoulos come to mind.
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off-line nanny?
Seriously?
Is that the best you can do?
If you don’t want to be moderated because you’re a fucking asshole, then go to the sites that expressly allow you to be the fucking asshole you are!
Truth, Gab, Parler, Frank, 8chan, etc., will all allow you to go to their site and act like a fucking asshole without any consequences.
Why aren’t jumping at that opportunity?
Why do you want to be a fucking asshole on sites where you are not welcome?
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Why do you want to be a fucking asshole on sites where you are not welcome?
One word: masochism. 😉
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Frankly, there’s Rule 34 communities that would readily accept Chozen, but considering his track record, it seems unlikely that he’d last long there either. He’d somehow find a way to fuck that up for himself.
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Why do you want to be a fucking asshole on sites where you are not welcome?
Because it’s not fun if they can’t annoy people who couldn’t care less about their nonsense.
It’s not about free speech. It’s about the ability to be annoying for no purpose or gain.
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For the same reason someone who’s desperate for attention doesn’t boast about how awesome they are to an empty room: The entire point is the attention they get, positive or negative.
If the only people in the room are other assholes then there’s no-one to shock and disgust, which makes it much less entertaining, hence why they keep insisting that they have a right to hijack other people’s property since even they don’t want to be in a crowd that’s nothing but people like them.
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Re: Re: Re: Serriously
“Why do you want to be a fucking asshole on sites where you are not welcome?”
Seriously you are like a broken record. You regurgitate talking points. The point was that yes platforms have been banning people for things not said on their platform.
That’s the fucking issue you moron and what this section of law prevents. Platforms are not free to take action for things done outside of their platform.
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Platforms are free to do whatever the fuck they want.
And they are doing it right now and there is nothing you can do about but cry and shit yourself!
Deal with it mother fucker!
Or find a site that will allow you to be the fucking asshole you have proven yourself to be!
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Re: Re: Re:3 Within the Law
“Platforms are free to do whatever the fuck they want.”
Only to the extent the law allows.
Re: Re: Re:4
Exactly… And tell me, what law makes it illegal to ban whiney little fucks like you?
Oh wait… There isn’t one!!
Wow… smells like you just shit yourself again, whiney little bitch.
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Re: Re: Re:5 If the State of Texas Wants
If the state of Texas wants to make it illegal to ban me that is within the states prerogative.
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What does tell you about yourself?
That you are so toxic, and such a fucking asshole that social media sites ban you… and that you need a god damn Texas law to force a private business, one that wants nothing to do with you, into allowing you back on their private property.
That’s like going into WalMart, shitting in the middle of the floor, yelling racial slurs and harassing everybody who walks by, then suing them once they kick you out for acting like a fucking asshole.
Only fucking assholes think they should be allowed to go anywhere they want, acting like fucking assholes, so I guess it’s fitting of you.
Re: Re: Re:6
.. said nobody with the slightest understanding of Federal and Constitutional law, ever.
Re: Re: Re:2
Why not? Other businesses can. For example:
Link 1
Link 2
Re: Re: Re:2
The point was that yes platforms have been banning people for things not said on their platform.
The question still stands. Why would you give your personal information and advertising attention to a place that does things you obviously disapprove of?
Do you understand the question is about you and not Twitter?
Do I need to explain it in more detail? It starts with the 1st three words of the question:
Why do you
Not Twitter, not Texas not California, not Trump. It says why do you which in this context means you.
Hope this clears things up for you Chip.
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What fags.
Whining that sites can’t censor people.
What has Techdirt come to?
We old-school trolls would just find a way to revolt ourselves.
People like Koby and Chozen are ideological brownshirts.
Just How Incredibly Fucked Up...
…is this blog’s comment-thread layout?
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Do you have it in threaded or in chronological view, because if it’s displayed according to when a comment is made rather than who it’s made to I can imagine it to be all but unreadable.
Does this mean I can't block the Donald, if he returns?
Reading the content moderation bullshit, it sounds like Twitter can’t obey my request to not see the tripe the former guy would emit, because that would be censorship. Is that interpretation correct, or am I being a little too farfetched?
A Texan in Germany’s thought experiment
I’m a resident of Germany, but solely a US citizen who is incidentally a Texas voter due to that having been my last US residence before I became a resident of Germany…
How’s this going to work if one of my cousins posts something Nazi-adjacent enough on Facebook that Germany’s well-known (but apparently not well-known enough) law against publishing Nazi-supporting materials kicks in, which obliges Facebook and other services to block said posts being displayed to users in Germany, even if those users are not Germans, but Americans?
Back in the day…
I have no idea how old the author is, but in the early days of the internet this was pretty much how things went on a smaller scale. We lived with it and as spam grew many ideas came out to mitigate spam email and obscene content. At some point we went down a road that made facebook, and all the other websites you listed, arbiters of public opinion. There were other workable ideas though, such as charging a minimal sum for every electronic message. The whole premise of your argument on unlimited spam garbage communication hinges on the concept that speech must remain free in a monetary sense, maybe it doesn’t? If I wanted to tell you off in the comments section, but it cost 5$, maybe I wouldn’t.