Texas Also Wants an Unconstitutional Social Media Bill

[TwinIon]

After Florida's social media bill was quickly deemed unconstitutional, Texas has decided to get in on the action with their own preposterous bill. As TechDirt notes, the bill includes an insane definition of censorship that conforms to how conservative twitter uses the term more than it does any sort of actual definition:

Quote

"Censor" means to block, ban, remove, deplatform, demonetize, de-boost, restrict, deny equal access or visibility to, or otherwise discriminate against expression.

 

CENSORSHIP PROHIBITED. (a) A social media platform may not censor a user, a user ’s expression, or a user ’s ability to receive the expression of another person based on:

        (1) the viewpoint of the user or another person;
        (2) the viewpoint represented in the user’s expression or another person’s expression; or
        (3) a user’s geographic location in this state or any part of this state.

I don't think I've ever seen a more unworkable definition. So you've now made all basic moderation illegal, but insisting that denying equal visibility is discrimination basically breaks the internet again. Should Google or Twitter just randomize the results of all searches? How in the world would TikTok operate if their algorithm now has to treat everyone equally? If I decided to post a message, would Facebook be forced to give me equal visibility to everyone else?

 

As far as I can tell, there's no Texas equivalent to Florida's "theme park exemption," but other than that Texas is sure trying it's best to emulate the State no one should be emulating.

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

Just block Texans from your platforms sorry @sblfilms

[Guest]

9 minutes ago, b_m_b_m_b_m said:

Just block Texans from your platforms sorry @sblfilms

Fair

[ThreePi]

Though actually blocking an entire state from Twitter/Facebook/whatever isn't really feasible, they should still call their bluff. I assume this law wouldn't take effect immediately after it is signed. So the social media companies should make posts/tweets to all Texas users stating "Due to law XXXXX, Twitter will cease to function in the State of Texas as of *date*" the law will almost assuredly be struck down as unconstitutional before then, but they should absolutely play chicken with them.

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

2 minutes ago, ThreePi said:

Though actually blocking an entire state from Twitter/Facebook/whatever isn't really feasible, they should still call their bluff. I assume this law wouldn't take effect immediately after it is signed. So the social media companies should make posts/tweets to all Texas users stating "Due to law XXXXX, Twitter will cease to function in the State of Texas as of *date*" the law will almost assuredly be struck down as unconstitutional before then, but they should absolutely play chicken with them.

If you can identify them well enough to literally send them a message, you can block them. Even if some use a VPN or whatever and don't get cought it will be enough to cause an issue

[Jason]

19 minutes ago, ThreePi said:

Though actually blocking an entire state from Twitter/Facebook/whatever isn't really feasible, they should still call their bluff. I assume this law wouldn't take effect immediately after it is signed. So the social media companies should make posts/tweets to all Texas users stating "Due to law XXXXX, Twitter will cease to function in the State of Texas as of *date*" the law will almost assuredly be struck down as unconstitutional before then, but they should absolutely play chicken with them.

 

Online gambling already does it since everything has to be within a single state due to the federal issues. 

[ThreePi]

I don't mean "not feasible" from a technical sense, but more of a business-sense. I don't think Twitter would actually want to be on the hook for shutting down local business Twitter accounts, or for local emergency services, etc.

[brucoe]

What's really funny about this whole issue is that conservatives cry the most about being "censored" by social media, but in reality, they do pretty damn well on most social networking, and especially on stuff like Youtube and other such venues. Their problem, and this is what causes them to throw a fit every now and then, is that they don't know when to police themselves, quite often turning really ugly and violent on anyone who disagrees with them. I've seen so many right wing channels, Twitters and Facebook groups completely obliterated because they just decided that they no longer cared about decorum standards. And then AFTER they get hit, they turn around and start playing "whataboutisms" with every non-conservative channel because they perceive something negative from that end of the spectrum.

 

The reality is that there are just WAY too many people on social networking sites that are toxic and mean (from both ends of the spectrum). Instead of policing their own stuff, each side points fingers at the other stuff and cries when they don't get the results they desire. But the rub is that in order to actually gain any traction, quite often the only way to do so is to turn toxic and mean, which means people get a little bit of notoriety, and then they get banned.