Texas’ HB 20 severely limits social media companies’ ability to moderate content on their platforms, and is likely unconstitutional. But the complaint from the CCIA and NetChoice is now in the hands of a Texas district court.
The Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA) and NetChoice this week filed suit to overturn a Texas law that bans many social-media platforms from interfering with users’ posts based on their viewpoint. The complaint filed by CCIA and NetChoice in US District Court for the Western District of Texas against Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton alleges that the Texas law, House Bill 20, violates multiple parts of the Constitution, starting with the First Amendment’s prohibition of laws “abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.” HB 20, signed into law by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott on Sept.9, prohibits many forms of content moderation at social platforms with more than 50 million US monthly average users. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott Its text says they “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 (3) a user’s geographic location in this state or any part of this state.” “Censor” means “to block, ban, remove, deplatform, demonetize, de-boost, restrict, deny equal access or visibility to, or otherwise discriminate against expression.” (“Trump” appears nowhere in the law’s text, but it reads as a response to social sites bannin g the former president after his encouragement of the Jan.
