In One Lawsuit, Louisiana & Missouri Say Gov’t Can Never Pressure Websites To Change; In Another, They’re Looking To Pressure Websites To Change
from the a-study-in-contrasts dept
We’ve spent plenty of time over the last year or so on Missouri and Louisiana’s lawsuit against the Biden administration for apparently suggesting how sites like Meta should moderate content on their platforms. That case has had its twists and turns and is now going before the Supreme Court. I’m sure we’ll have plenty more to say on that case shortly, but last week we also saw the lawsuit where 33 states sued Meta for (what the lawsuit claims) is Meta’s failures to keep kids from using the platform.
Two of the states that signed on were… Missouri and Louisiana.
So… I’m curious if there’s any way to square these two lawsuits. Because as far as I can tell, the argument is that the government should never, ever even say anything that will pressure a website to change how it handles content on its website.
But also…
It’s perfectly fine for the government to use the judicial system to… force a website to handle content in the manner that the state feels is best.
Of course, the reality is that it doesn’t matter one bit that the two lawsuits are wholly inconsistent. This has always been about culture wars and headlines, and the earlier case is about the Attorneys General in Louisiana and Missouri scoring culture war points with the dumber segments of their voting bases, while the Meta lawsuit is about scoring techlash culture points among angry parents and teachers for failing in their jobs as parents and teachers.
But, really, it seems like reporters who are covering those two AGs might want to ask them directly how they can have both of these lawsuits going on at the same time. Can the government tell websites that host 3rd party speech how to operate or not?
Filed Under: andrew bailey, biden administration, for the children, jeff landry, louisiana, missouri
Companies: meta
Comments on “In One Lawsuit, Louisiana & Missouri Say Gov’t Can Never Pressure Websites To Change; In Another, They’re Looking To Pressure Websites To Change”
It's called "hedging your bets"
If it’s done with conviction, it is called being disingenuous. Neither is exactly unknown in politics.
Gotta love the consistency of their inconsistencies.
The desires of politicians.
We are not forcing or banning any form of speech, just ensuring that our side can speak and the other cannot
Love the last paragraph
Expecting reporters to do their jobs. Really? What planet are you from?
Re: Louisiana AG
Our governor-elect, the AG in question, has a history of intimidation, suing, and attempting to get journalists fired for criticism & asking questions. Those are only from incidents that have become public, no telling if there have been incidents that were kept quiet. He also only speaks to friendly media and in friendly forums. There are journalists trying to do their jobs, even if they are a minority.
'The constitution only applies when we aren't in power.'
Their positions are entirely consistent really: the government is not allowed to tell companies what to do and how to handle speech only so long as they aren’t the government. If one of theirs is in office then the government is absolutely allowed to tell the likes of Meta what to do/not do.
Also in Louisiana...
Louisiana is also one of the states with a law on the books requiring age verification for all users of adult sites, so it really is ironic that they also want to block the Federal government from telling websites how to operate.