Forward from: Warren Balogh NJP 🔥
This Texas law is great and a terrific step in the right direction.
The claim that social media companies cannot be lawfully compelled to not engage in widespread censorship of viewpoints because that would violate the First Amendment turns the idea of free speech completely on its head.
If you say social media companies are violating the First Amendment rights of citizens by censoring viewpoints, they say the First Amendment doesn't apply to them because they are private companies and not the government. But if you say the legislature is going to pass a law penalizing those companies for censoring viewpoints, now they want to hide behind the First Amendment.
It's shit like this that makes people lose all faith in democracy. If the will of the people and their elected representatives counts for nothing, if the courts always side with the plutocracy against the basic rights of the people----then what is the argument against simply abolishing the courts and the legislature and installing a popular dictatorship in their place??
At some point people get fed up with having their rights endlessly trampled and being endlessly told how it's the right of the powerful to trample on them but they have no legitimate right to push back.
Maybe the solution is to do away with private social media companies altogether----along with the legislatures and the courts!
https://www.politico.com/amp/news/2022/05/13/tech-groups-ask-justice-alito-to-stay-texas-social-media-law-00032496
The claim that social media companies cannot be lawfully compelled to not engage in widespread censorship of viewpoints because that would violate the First Amendment turns the idea of free speech completely on its head.
If you say social media companies are violating the First Amendment rights of citizens by censoring viewpoints, they say the First Amendment doesn't apply to them because they are private companies and not the government. But if you say the legislature is going to pass a law penalizing those companies for censoring viewpoints, now they want to hide behind the First Amendment.
It's shit like this that makes people lose all faith in democracy. If the will of the people and their elected representatives counts for nothing, if the courts always side with the plutocracy against the basic rights of the people----then what is the argument against simply abolishing the courts and the legislature and installing a popular dictatorship in their place??
At some point people get fed up with having their rights endlessly trampled and being endlessly told how it's the right of the powerful to trample on them but they have no legitimate right to push back.
Maybe the solution is to do away with private social media companies altogether----along with the legislatures and the courts!
https://www.politico.com/amp/news/2022/05/13/tech-groups-ask-justice-alito-to-stay-texas-social-media-law-00032496