Social media litigation heats up with focus on minorities
Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios
More people are speaking up in a social media content moderation case before the Supreme Court, including a key Democratic senator.
State of play: Sen. Ben Ray Luján filed an amicus brief in NetChoice, LLC v. Paxton concerning Florida and Texas social media laws.
- The court is considering whether the First Amendment prohibits companies from making editorial choices about whether and how to disseminate content.
- Luján, who leads the Commerce Committee's communications panel, argues in his brief that the state laws are unconstitutional and social media companies can moderate content.
Why it matters: When it comes to social media companies' role in public discourse, lasting change can come only from Congress. Luján filed the brief for three reasons, his office told Axios.
- To underscore that internet regulation is primarily a federal matter
- To emphasize the important role social media has in the lives of constituents, particularly marginalized communities
- To highlight the legislative branch's role in evaluating the constitutionality of legislation
Yes, but: Lawmakers are entrenched in their ideological views about what social media companies should be able to do, and hopes of breaking the impasse are low.
What they're saying: Luján in a statement stressed that many historically silenced groups now have a voice in a variety of spaces, including social media.
- "Increasing online violence, harassment, and hate speech threaten to drive Hispanic, Black, Native and LGBTQ+ communities offline and back into the fringes of public debate."
- "As I argue in my amicus, social media companies have their own free speech rights, and that includes the right to create spaces for the voices of traditionally marginalized and silenced communities."
Read the full brief here.
Meanwhile, various groups have been filing briefs before the court. The Wikimedia Foundation writes in a release that "the laws are written so broadly that they could potentially be applied to volunteer-run projects like Wikipedia.… This means they could restrict volunteers' ability to moderate Wikipedia content."
- The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press writes in a release that the "First Amendment forbids both direct interference with a private speaker's exercise of editorial judgment and disclosure mandates that target the exercise of editorial judgment."
- Former Rep. Chris Cox and Sen. Ron Wyden, who wrote Section 230, wrote in their brief that platforms have a First Amendment right to editorial control.
