US and Texas flags are flying outside the Texas State Capitol building.
A federal judge ruled yesterday that a Texas state law that banned "censorship" on social media platforms was unconstitutional.
"Social media platforms have the right to moderate content on their platforms," Judge Robert Pitman wrote. He found that the Texas law restricts the editorial discretion of social media platforms and that it violates the First Amendment.
Tech industry groups NetChoice and the Computer & Communications & Industry Association (CCIA) were granted a preliminary injunction by Pitman's ruling. Tech companies such as Facebook, Google, and others are in the groups.
The Texas attorney general can't enforce the law. The judge found that the case was likely to succeed on the merits, which is required for a preliminary injunction.
Constitutional defects areplete with them.
The severability clause was rejected by Pitman because it was intended to save parts of the law. He found that the unconstitutional portions areplete with constitutional defects, including unconstitutional content and speaker-based intrusion, and that nothing can be severed from the law.
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CCIA President Matt Schruers said yesterday that the ruling upholds the First Amendment and protects Internet users. Texas's social media law would make the internet a more dangerous place by tying the hands of companies protecting users from abuse, scam, or extremists, if the injunction is not in place. When a state law would prevent companies from enforcing policies against Nazi propaganda, hate speech, and disinformation from foreign agents, the government can't force a citizen or company to be associated with a viewpoint they disapprove of.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed a bill in September to protect Texans' First Amendment rights against a "dangerous movement by social media companies to silence conservative viewpoints and ideas." Florida tried to impose a similar social media law but it was also blocked by a federal judge.
Parler and Gab are not included in the law.
Pitman wrote that a platform that labels a post as misinformation may be discriminating against that user's viewpoint by adding its own disclaimer. The law restricts social media platforms' First Amendment right to engage in expression when they disagree with or object to content.
The social media platforms' speech rights are at risk because of the threat of lawsuits. Pitman found that the law's disclosure and operational requirements impose burdens on social media platforms' editorial discretion, and that the law discriminates based on content and speaker.
Texas lawmakers applied the law only to platforms with 50 million or more monthly active users in the US and excluded conservative social networks Parler and Gab. Pitman wrote that a state senator tried to lower the threshold to include sites like Parler and Gab.
