Tech groups ask Justice Alito to stay Texas social media law | Hacker News Reader

Tech groups ask Justice Alito to stay Texas social media law

politico.com

7 pointsgmays6 comments

Am I reading the right? A Texan[1] who writes 2,500 censored comments a day, for example, has an earning potential of $9.1M/yr through litigation? Sounds like a gold mine.

It puts Reddit in a difficult position. The vast majority of moderation is done by volunteer moderators. Those moderators now represent a legal/financial liability to the platform if some of their moderating actions are deemed illegal.

1. Or anyone who does business in Texas

how would this bill even work?

Doesn't almost force the companies to shut down in texas?

Having been apparently been the only person on HN to even take a cursory view of the bill text, basically the bill forbids "censoring" people based on political views. That leaves open if people are being censored because political views or behavior. It's very hard to prove that distinction, just like it's very hard to prove that a company is discriminating for/again a certain group when it comes to hiring or pay. And lawsuits over such discrimination allegations usually don't go anywhere.

The other part of the bill that I suspect companies are more worried about is that they have to published details about their moderate policies and statistics on how they are applied. No more bans with vague reasons like "harmful content".

Does it give a definition of "censoring" or leave that up to whatever court might find itself mired in such a lawsuit?

From the bill:

"Censor" means any action taken to edit, alter, block, ban, delete, remove, deplatform, demonetize, de-boost, regulate, restrict, inhibit the publication or reproduction of, or deny equal access or visibility to expression, to suspend a right to post, remove, or post an addendum to any content or material posted by a user, or to otherwise discriminate against expression. The term includes an action taken to inhibit a social media platform or interactive computer service user's ability to be viewed by or interact with another user of the platform or service.

https://legiscan.com/TX/text/HB20/id/2424328

That seems comprehensive. I still don't understand how this squares with private ownership, where that ownership includes the ability to do what you want with your property. This seems to mandate that Texans can force people to pay for other people's speech, which the payers may actually strongly disagree with.

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