The Supreme Court of the United States has been asked to determine whether Florida’s social media law is constitutional.
Protocol reported that NetChoice and the Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA) reached a deal with Florida to ask the Supreme Court to step in.
NetChoice is a representation of TikTok and other companies like Amazon, Google, Facebook and others. They argue that the law violates constitutional rights.
“There are so many provisions between the Texas and Florida laws that are unconstitutional, and states are picking and choosing. Sometimes they’re doing a straight copy-paste,” Chris Marchese, counsel for NetChoice, said of the law. “The sooner the Supreme Court lays out some guardrails on that, the better it’ll be for everyone.”
NewsBusters earlier in the year reported that NetChoice was favored by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals and had blocked a portion of the law.
“We hold that it is substantially likely that social-media companies — even the biggest ones — are ‘private actors’ whose rights the First Amendment protects,” Judge Kevin Newsom wrote in the unanimous opinion.
The judge stated that “Put simply with minor exceptions the government cannot tell a private individual or entity what or how it should say it.”
The judge also rejected the argument that social media platforms acted as “common carriers” and therefore had a greater responsibility to provide a platform for users.
“Social-media platforms have never acted like common carriers,” the judge wrote. “While it’s true that social-media platforms generally hold themselves open to all members of the public, they require users, as preconditions of access, to accept their terms of service and abide by their community standards.”
The court also ruled in favor of the law and held that social media platforms must allow banned users to access their data stored on the platform’s servers for at least 60 days.
Ashley Moody from Florida was pleased with the outcome.
“We are pleased the court recognized the state’s authority to rein in social media companies and upheld major portions of Florida’s law leading the way in doing so. We will continue to vigorously defend Florida’s authority to demand accountability from Big Tech,” she tweetedIt was at that time.
Conservatives under attackTell your representatives to demand Big Tech is held accountable to the First Amendment and provide equal treatment for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us using CensorTrack’s Contact formHelp us to hold Big Tech responsible.
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