Supreme Court suspends controversial Texas social media anti-moderation law

The U.S. Supreme Court, the country’s highest court, has suspended a controversial Texas law that allowed people to sue social media companies for deleting their posts.

In a vote in the Supreme Court, a narrow majority of five judges for temporary blocking of the recently enacted law; four judges voted against. With that, a previous month has been pronounced approval of an appeal court wiped out. This means that the so-called HB 20 law will be blocked during the ongoing lawsuit over the constitutionality of the law. That lawsuit is taking place in a Texas court.

This debate over constitutionality began when a lower court blocked the law in 2021. That was overturned in May this year when an appeals court lifted this blockade. Netchoice and the Computer and Communications Industry Association decided to appeal to the Supreme Court on that basis. Settlement of the debate on this law could take several years.

The state of Texas tried to defend the law in a plea to the Supreme Court. The Texas Attorney General argued that social media platforms like common carrier should be seen and that they should therefore treat all content neutrally. According to the lawyer, social media are modern variants of, for example, telephone companies and they are not seriously affected by the rules of the law. The Republican majority in Texas says the law is intended to counter censorship.

NetChoice and the CCIA argued that HB 20 makes even basic moderation decisions unworkable. “Platforms should not be forced by the government to spread the most despicable statements – such as manifestos by white supremacists, Nazi cries, Russian state propaganda, Holocaust denial and recruitment to terrorist organizations,” the parties argued in the case before the Supreme Court. Supreme Court.

Tech companies are against this law because they fear a flood of lawsuits. They also point to a law from the 1990s that says they won’t face such liability if they actively moderate, something all tech companies do on their platforms. It only concerns platforms with more than 50 million users.