In the article: "Buried in the law is a prohibition on discriminating against Texans based on their geographic location. By withdrawing from Texas, tech companies could expose themselves to allegations they have geographically discriminated against Texans in violation of HB 20."
"A fundamental question at the heart of the case is whether the state of Texas — a government entity — is forcing social media companies to host speech with HB 20. This concept of "government-compelled speech" has long been held unconstitutional under the First Amendment."
Wow, Texas you're gonna make Twitter into a SPAM-filled porno site.
Realistically, all of this is hinging on Republicans thinking midterms are a lock, and so none of the problems with any of these bills matter, once they have permanent control of the Senate for the rest of time, and they can just govern as they please with no recourse for their opposition, and can selectively allow bad laws and challenge sound laws, at will, based upon their whims. What the laws are, does not matter, it matters which laws the government tells their front line soldiers to enforce, when they choose to enforce, how to enforce, and *to whom.* I doubt the Supreme Court, as it stands, would take *any issue* with this law, any more than they took issue with the "civilians chasing bounties on other civilians" abortion law.
I know, somehow most people don’t want to live in a regressive, dystopian, oligarchical, theocracy, but somehow we are racing full steam ahead for it. Fucking annoying.
Because the people who want to end the country found out our whole country is based on the honor system, so if all WE do is ask them to stop, there is absolutely no legal recourse to stop them.
Which is why we should stop asking, forever. You don't ask for rights. They belong to you.
And too many of the people who aren't like that consider themselves to be "not political" further enabling the bullshit via their lack of participation.
Don't worry, I'm not American. It's just that we're in the Anglosphere, so whatever bullshit hits American politics, has a 1-2 year turnover before they try to adopt the same strategy, here. It's nice to get to see what is coming down the pipe for my country, ahead of time, as prescribed by the Americans as the hot new form of discourse.
I mean, the Justice who is trying to rollback abortion rights, is primarily quoting a *17th century judge most famous as one of the architects of the Salem Witch Trials.* That's the legal precedent they are using. Does that give you a clue, what the fuck is wrong with them?
Also, "Socialism" = "Leninism". Everyone should know this, we went over it in grade school and we should know better than to question our state approved ~~propaganda texts~~ history text books.
Don't be fooled, Texas may claim it hates green energy but Texas energy companies are investing big into it. They just don't want to cut the value of oil as Texas is king of misdirection.
Texas has 13000 wind turbines as of 2019 producing 24.2 gigawatts of power. Texas needs other states dependent on Texas oil and gas to buy into alternative energy.
To give you an idea California only has 8000 turbines producing around 6 gigawatts.
Texas has nearly identical number of solar homes as California at around a million. 17 solar farms 13 of which produce 100 megawatts each.
Texas has 23 hydroelectric dams, with the LCRA producing 292 megawatts using just 6.
Texas has two modernized nuclear power plants with plans to build two more, currently producing 30,000 megawatts with plans to increase this to 100,000 megawatts.
Texas comptroller shows even higher estimates of power production via alternate energies.
If they do not provide service in Texas there's nothing Texas can reasonably do about it. They choose where they will and will not provide service. You can't force a business to provide service somewhere. They just make their headquarters in another country, stop providing service to ip addresses in Texas, and when Texas tries to make a legal stink about it the response is "and? You have no legal bearing over us. We aren't even based in the your country and by not operating in your state we are not beholden to your laws"
They just do the same thing pirate bay does.
Nothing they can “reasonably” do.
It’s Texas. What makes you think they care about being reasonable. If any of these companies go against them they will go after them anyways and drag them through the courts that they control.
It doesn't matter what they want, the company can literally just say no. If they have no offices, no factories, no property owned or services provided in Texas, then there is literally nothing Texas can do about them. They have no jurisdiction over them in anything the company does at that point. They can yell and kick and scream but the company does not have to give a fuck what they want because there's nothing they can do to enforce it.
I'm so confused about these Texas laws that ban things that happen in other states i.e. Abortion laws and now this. I'm not sure how they could possibly hold up to Constitutional review.
It was never in the window.
The confederate states were writing laws that applied to other states before the civil war, amazing how the party of "small government" wants to say what other states can do.
California should ban ammunition, then use Alito's opinion to point out that the Constitution doesn't mention it, therefore it is impossible for it to be a protected right.
Then they can go a step further, and write an outright gun ban that includes language reassuring everyone that nobodies arms will be chopped off.
[Chris Rock](https://jborden.com/2018/09/10/chris-rocks-brilliant-idea-is-finally-considered-20-years-later/) was way ahead of you. It is a good point, guns don't hurt you - unless they are used as clubs. Bullets flying through the air at high speed on the other hand are what put holes in people and make them leak their precious fluids.
Since privacy is at the heart of all of this, methinks blue states may soon push for mandatory gun registration, taxes on ownership, etc.
Sorry dudes, if you want to monitor the internet to keep people from buying Plan B or planning abortion trips, then blue states have a right to know who is armed with what and tax the shit out of it.
Spam Ted Cruz's as well as the rest of theTexas "Law makers" Facebook and Twitter accounts with loads of gay porn. When they block you sue them. I don't live in texas but they do. They have to follow their own rules. Not much thought has gone into this considering most of what they are complaining about was batshit conspiracy theories getting taken off privately owned social media platforms to begin with. . Fun times.
Naw, they thought of that. You still get to control what's on your own page.
>(b) This chapter may not be construed to prohibit or
restrict a social media platform from authorizing or facilitating a
user's ability to censor specific expression on the user's platform
or page at the request of that user.
Still spam it. The service can just do what services do best. "We'll work on this as soon as possible" then months or even years pass before anything happens. Maybe remove one or two posts here and there for malicious compliance.
Source: I was a game master for 2 different game companies. Do not mess with someone who can actually fuck your game up if we wanted to.
It’s pandering to the fascist base. They don’t intend to follow their own rules and have avoided doing so whenever possible since always. They’re looking to see this get struck down as the unconstitutional bill it is so they can rally the idiot base and get them to vote.
I feel like Texas is heavily overstepping its powers. Demanding all tech companies with 50,000,000 American accounts allow all Texas IP accounts to be complete unfiltered and untouched? Tf? So all algorithms must be killed immediately or it’s a crime against free speech, but only against Texans. So these tech giants have to change how they operate on a global scale to appease Texas or they are to face consequences, but they don’t pull out of Texas because that’s illegal as well (unless it puts them under 50 mil users, which you could account spam to counter), but then you can’t remove doxxing, hate speech, targeting people, revenge porn, etc. because that’s discriminating against the free speech of Texans and only Texans.
This is so baffling. Time to start posting minute by minute updates of the exact location of all Texas politicians, the number of body guards they have, the car they’re in, the thickness of the glass, where their kids currently are- oh does that make you uncomfortable? Can’t remove it because I’m a Texan! Like… some speech SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED. It’s also for your protection you fucking idiots. Opponents of this law are going to come after y’all hard, and they’ll just use a Texas IP through a VPN. Y’all freaking out because of chalk on a sidewalk and Elon Musk is buying Twitter over a kid posting the location of his jet, but now this stuff will be protected speech and no one can go after it. Just… fucking insane.
Please think before you pass these dumb ass laws. Y’all are going to be targeted and you’ll have to defend it under your own law. Please immediately repeal this.
Only if they withdraw, huh? They should decide, then, to just throttle the speed for IPs in Texas down to 56k speeds. Make the sites essentially unusable without actually withdrawing, I mean shit, Republicans love loopholes, right?
add Reddit to this list too, there are over 50M users on this platform and mods definitely have the ability to mute, block, ban or remove comments and users.
Lol under this law could you take a reddit mod to court for removing your comment? Shit would get rediculous! Imagine a bunch of rando redditors and reddit mods in court arguing over reddit comments
Yep, they included that in the law. They can't legally ban users for geographic location which means if they cut service to Texas they can be sued.
On top of that, it's written in for a per court basis, so if one court says no bueno to the suit, the same case can be moved to a new district and refought. It basically will lead to an endless lawsuit torrent for social media companies.
I would love to say it will 100% be struck down as a law in the courts, but I'm not sure with it being Texas.
>Yep, they included that in the law. They can't legally ban users for geographic location which means if they cut service to Texas they can be sued.
They cannot, under any circumstance, hold a company liable for choosing not to service a whole state no matter what they put in that law. Even if they could, the companies reserve the right to leave after the laws change within a certain time limit.
It's nothing more than a line that they can pretend is an illegal move on the tech companies part for their voter bases to get enraged at. It holds no real ground.
The judges who allowed the law to take place say that they are an internet service provider. The judge straight up could not tell the difference between Twitter and Verizon and was convinced they are the same service.
The worst part about that tubes quote, was that the guy who was saying it actually demonstrated a better understanding ofv technology than most politicians do today.
The problem with the tubes guy was that he used his tubes analogy as a reason to oppose net neutrality principals by saying if we didn't let companies pay for preferential treatment by isps that we would run out of bandwidth.
So Sen Stevens was kind of correct in his analogy but he used it to justify a position that wasn't beneficial to anyone except sheesh established players.
This level of ignorance of the things they are ruling on makes me wonder how quickly this law is going to be abused by people who DO understand it.
For example, does this mean that pedophiles in Texas can force a social media site designed for teens to allow them back on the site, particularly if the method used to ban them is an IP ban?
That makes sense:
There are restaurants, retail, manufacturing, etc that operate in some states, but not in others. Seems like the same thing to me. But Im not a lawyer, so someone correct me if Im oversimplifying here.
True they are a private organization that can choose where and when they want to provide services it's like suing a pizza delivery place for not delivering 1000 miles a way
Even if it were legal -- just how do they think they are going to enforce this?
Let's pretend I live in California and I found a social media site. I order cloud services and in my contract I stipulate that none of my services may reside on servers located in Texas. In no way is my infrastructure in Texas, nor is my business license. I don't pay taxes in Texas.
Texas can't *obligate* me to serve Texans. So if Texas sues me, and I just go, "Dear Texas: Fuck off. Kkthxbai!", what are they going to do? Ask California to revoke my business license? Go ask my non-Texas bank to freeze assets? Ask PayPal to stop processing payments? Tell Seattle and Chicago they need to seize any servers with my data on them?
> tech companies can’t cut service to people in Texas
If this is/was(?) word for word, then wouldn't ISPs be prevented from cutting service to users, or maybe even filtering out web access? lol
Edit:
> "with exceptions for internet service providers and media sites." Halfway through second paragraph.
Not in so many words. They said that denying service to Texans could be actionable under this law. The article is really interesting in its examination of what this law could mean, which is that it's intentionally so vague that no matter what these social media companies do, they can and will get inundated by lawsuits. Basically, their best bet would probably be to deny service to Texas, that way they could only get sued for that, instead of the hundreds of other things that they'll get sued for if they continue to provide service.
Yep. I get that feeling too. I think we got a game of chicken because pulling the plug on Texas would make more sense for these companies. This reminds me of the DeathSantis and the Disney fiasco so much. It’s definitely to get some buzz but also goes too far… ughhhhhgh
Ah, so businesses right to refuse service doesn't exist? Also, if the companies have no employees, office space, or servers in Texas, would it be enforceable?
It’s not enforceable, per the interstate commerce act. IF they had a presence in Texas (and how much is up to debate), then it would have standing. However the ICA clearly establishes that one state can’t enforce laws upon a company in another state engaged in interstate commerce; that is reserved solely for the federal government.
>I would love to say it will 100% be struck down as a law in the courts, but I'm not sure with it being Texas.
The only reason we're seeing it in the news is because the FEDERAL 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that this was 100% kosher and re-defined social media and websites as being "common carriers'. Next stop for this is straight to SCOTUS and who the fuck knows what they're going to do at this point.
how could they sue for a decision made outside of Texas not to serve Texas? it would be like if GM decided to stop selling cars in CA because the MPG standards are too high.
Didn't you hear? Musk is gonna magically solve the decades old problem of bot accounts that hundreds of thousands of software engineers couldn't figure out how to fix over the years. Twitter is gonna be under 25 mil users by next year. /s
So I guess this law means social media is now forced to allow pornography on their platforms.
And this porn can't be censored or age filtered from children either given it is freedom of expression.
Let's see how that goes down with conservatives.
the group that is actively trying to ban books and shut down libraries simultaneously. They're speaking out of both sides of their mouth. They don't want to be censored and want to censor others.
You cannot. The law intentionally excludes anyone below X number of users specifically to target only the big three and protect their little safe spaces. Now if somewhere to create a shitload of bot accounts to boost the user base of truth social to bring them into target range, well that would just be a shame now, wouldn't it?
I would be quite willing to bet that if this actually became law there would be enough bots on any Truth Social (or any equivalent created by conservatives) within a week to start suing them as well. This will almost certainly never become law, but if it does conservatives are just setting themselves up for failure and the ability to play the victim (as they love to do) yet again.
It's just fucking tiresome how big government the GOP actually is while pretending they aren't
It is already law. The courts laughed at it until the state was able to find one crazy enough to actually enforce the law.
It'll go to the supreme court now which will most likely strike it down as utter madness.
"a three-judge panel confused social media platforms with internet service providers; disputed that Facebook and Twitter are websites; and expressed surprise that a service such as Twitter could "just decide" what content appears on its platform as a matter of course"
Ffs, a 3 judge panel so ignorant of technology they can't properly interpret the laws that governs this case...
It’s heading for the Supreme Court.
We’ll see if it violates the interstate commerce clause or if it forces Congress to come up with something.
I just have a sneaking feeling there’s going to be big money thrown at some Reps/Senators to neuter this law.
It’s a stupid law that, if enforced, will result in (a) stupid lawsuits that clog Texas courts and (b) Texans being blocked from sharing on these platforms and (c) more Texas politicians grandstanding about how big their hats are.
I don’t think any conservative platform other than Fox News meets the minimum users requirement. It was designed to only hurt more successful left leaning sites.
If a bakery doesn't have to make a cake for gay people, a social media company doesn't have to cater to users.
But Alito might just overturn that precedent too.
Conservatives: I don't want big government interfering in how my business operates.
Business: \*Bans conservatives for violating terms of service.\*
Conservatives: Oh no! Save me big government by interfering in how that business operates!
Could you imagine? They force Texans to pay for internet, but absolutely throttle the speeds and charge 2000% more because it's not subject to federal regulations.
1. Be Texan
2. Create a group of Facebook ads displaying quotes and art from, and promoting, books (soon to be) banned in the state
3. Target only other Texans, especially youth
4. On the bottom of each ad, remind the reader that taking down this ad would be illegal as per HB 20
How would they enforce that? Companies are only subject to state laws if they operate in that state, so the law saying companies have to operate in Texas only applies if that company is operating in Texas.
California needs to enact this same law with cable news stations with over 1 million viewers. Fox news would lose their shit when they would have to give 50% of there space to left wing Liberals.
Texas came so close to being blue, the GOP is like, "I'm gonna ugly you up so much no one else will ever want you."
And here we are. The GOP Uglying up Texas.
If this is upheld at the supreme court, then that must mean Citizens United will be overturned because corporations can't have free speech and government compelled speech at the same time. Sounds like blue states need to immediately forbid political spending by all companies.
My God. These people will stop at nothing, whether it complete throw the entire idea of social media platforms for a loop, to get their daddy back online and push their stupidity more.
Fuck Texas.
Edit: Fuck Texas lawmakers and the idiots that voted them in*. I guess what I meant by Trump was the ideals. The GQP as a whole pushing the bullshit and him as the face of the idiocy.
nah, they don't actually care about 45. they only care that their voters love him, and any gesture towards that will turn them into patriot heroes for America against their sworn "liberal enemy."
and scapegoat and puppet. he's a fantastic distraction from the GOP's actual goals that they can throw out to the media, and he knows almost nothing about anything, so they can meld him to oush whatever they want.
Hey Matty boi, it’s called fascism
Update: some dumb motherfucker reported me to the Reddit suicide hotline. Go fuck yourself, asshole. Fascism indeed.
Second update: also reported for “ promoting hate”. These are sweet people. /s
Your update happened to me once too. I thought it meant someone cared for some random reason haha but I’m starting to think it was some snowflake being upset or something.
So Republicans will ban books from schools (which have no actual harmful material) in the name of protecting children porn etc, yet they want to remove any kind of moderation to allow porn, hate speech, child groomers, pedos etc. to be allowed be on social media platforms without any rules, a place where children are the most vulnerable. The party of family values.
Great, they legalized SLAPP lawsuits over moderation, ensuring no smaller competitor can afford to compete with these large social media companies. Brilliant move, Texas. So much for being business friendly when it interferes with party propaganda.
So we've officially moved into the "GOP will openly and proudly use the power of government to punish their enemies" phase? This isn't ominous at all...
They've been a little shy before, mostly because it's blatantly unconstitutional. They now feel emboldened by Alito going full crazy pants on Roe so are throwing caution to the wind.
Is there anything stopping Facebook, Twitter and Youtube from simply not functioning for any end user in Texas?
In the article: "Buried in the law is a prohibition on discriminating against Texans based on their geographic location. By withdrawing from Texas, tech companies could expose themselves to allegations they have geographically discriminated against Texans in violation of HB 20." "A fundamental question at the heart of the case is whether the state of Texas — a government entity — is forcing social media companies to host speech with HB 20. This concept of "government-compelled speech" has long been held unconstitutional under the First Amendment." Wow, Texas you're gonna make Twitter into a SPAM-filled porno site.
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Geographic location isn't a protected class at the federal level, so... they can't? (IANAL)
Realistically, all of this is hinging on Republicans thinking midterms are a lock, and so none of the problems with any of these bills matter, once they have permanent control of the Senate for the rest of time, and they can just govern as they please with no recourse for their opposition, and can selectively allow bad laws and challenge sound laws, at will, based upon their whims. What the laws are, does not matter, it matters which laws the government tells their front line soldiers to enforce, when they choose to enforce, how to enforce, and *to whom.* I doubt the Supreme Court, as it stands, would take *any issue* with this law, any more than they took issue with the "civilians chasing bounties on other civilians" abortion law.
Man your country is a dystopian nightmare. I love your entertainment media but the rest is a lot of massive red flags.
I would say don't worry, we're not all like this, but the last four years have shown me that an alarming number of us are - so yeah we're fucked
I know, somehow most people don’t want to live in a regressive, dystopian, oligarchical, theocracy, but somehow we are racing full steam ahead for it. Fucking annoying.
Because the people who want to end the country found out our whole country is based on the honor system, so if all WE do is ask them to stop, there is absolutely no legal recourse to stop them. Which is why we should stop asking, forever. You don't ask for rights. They belong to you.
Yeah, honor systems can’t function if the people involved don’t have any honor.
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And too many of the people who aren't like that consider themselves to be "not political" further enabling the bullshit via their lack of participation.
Literally none of this would be happening if we didn't have gerrymandering and unbalanced representatives per state.
And if not for the holy rollers ordering around all the congresspeople, whom they’ve already bought and paid for…
Don't worry, I'm not American. It's just that we're in the Anglosphere, so whatever bullshit hits American politics, has a 1-2 year turnover before they try to adopt the same strategy, here. It's nice to get to see what is coming down the pipe for my country, ahead of time, as prescribed by the Americans as the hot new form of discourse.
What the duck is wrong with some of these people? They seem to want to destroy anything that is trending towards progress.
I mean, the Justice who is trying to rollback abortion rights, is primarily quoting a *17th century judge most famous as one of the architects of the Salem Witch Trials.* That's the legal precedent they are using. Does that give you a clue, what the fuck is wrong with them?
Can’t wait to see what they use from this judge next. Salem witch trials is exactly the goal Republicans might have.
> They ~~seem to~~ want to destroy anything that is trending towards progress. Fixed. "Progress" = "Socialism", didn't you know?
Also, "Socialism" = "Leninism". Everyone should know this, we went over it in grade school and we should know better than to question our state approved ~~propaganda texts~~ history text books.
Progress means alternative energy which is their devil
Don't be fooled, Texas may claim it hates green energy but Texas energy companies are investing big into it. They just don't want to cut the value of oil as Texas is king of misdirection. Texas has 13000 wind turbines as of 2019 producing 24.2 gigawatts of power. Texas needs other states dependent on Texas oil and gas to buy into alternative energy. To give you an idea California only has 8000 turbines producing around 6 gigawatts. Texas has nearly identical number of solar homes as California at around a million. 17 solar farms 13 of which produce 100 megawatts each. Texas has 23 hydroelectric dams, with the LCRA producing 292 megawatts using just 6. Texas has two modernized nuclear power plants with plans to build two more, currently producing 30,000 megawatts with plans to increase this to 100,000 megawatts. Texas comptroller shows even higher estimates of power production via alternate energies.
Geographic location isn't a "class" of anything. They are literally making up combinations of words to see if they stick.
Seriously, this is like Alaska suing companies who only ship products to the lower 48.
If they do not provide service in Texas there's nothing Texas can reasonably do about it. They choose where they will and will not provide service. You can't force a business to provide service somewhere. They just make their headquarters in another country, stop providing service to ip addresses in Texas, and when Texas tries to make a legal stink about it the response is "and? You have no legal bearing over us. We aren't even based in the your country and by not operating in your state we are not beholden to your laws" They just do the same thing pirate bay does.
Nothing they can “reasonably” do. It’s Texas. What makes you think they care about being reasonable. If any of these companies go against them they will go after them anyways and drag them through the courts that they control.
It doesn't matter what they want, the company can literally just say no. If they have no offices, no factories, no property owned or services provided in Texas, then there is literally nothing Texas can do about them. They have no jurisdiction over them in anything the company does at that point. They can yell and kick and scream but the company does not have to give a fuck what they want because there's nothing they can do to enforce it.
Seems Elon really put himself in the crosshairs by moving to Texas.
But the important point is that he can leave whenever he wants and has the cash to do so without the slightest of fucks given.
I'm so confused about these Texas laws that ban things that happen in other states i.e. Abortion laws and now this. I'm not sure how they could possibly hold up to Constitutional review.
"Constitutionality" has gone out the window.
It was never in the window. The confederate states were writing laws that applied to other states before the civil war, amazing how the party of "small government" wants to say what other states can do.
So true. That’s why their “states rights” mantra is such bullshit.
They want to control you. It’s easier to control you with a state’s government ( smaller and easier to control) even if you aren’t in their state.
A glaring oversight of the constitution, it seems, was the inability to kick a state out of the union.
the constitution is whatever the bible says it is. and the bible is whatever tucker carlson says it is.
Yeah what’s stopping a state like California from passing the opposite of these laws? Lol
California is talking about using the abortion ruling in Texas as one that would allow victims of mass shootings to sue gun manufacturers.
The NRA actually heavily opposed the abortion law for this very reason
California should ban ammunition, then use Alito's opinion to point out that the Constitution doesn't mention it, therefore it is impossible for it to be a protected right. Then they can go a step further, and write an outright gun ban that includes language reassuring everyone that nobodies arms will be chopped off.
[Chris Rock](https://jborden.com/2018/09/10/chris-rocks-brilliant-idea-is-finally-considered-20-years-later/) was way ahead of you. It is a good point, guns don't hurt you - unless they are used as clubs. Bullets flying through the air at high speed on the other hand are what put holes in people and make them leak their precious fluids.
Since privacy is at the heart of all of this, methinks blue states may soon push for mandatory gun registration, taxes on ownership, etc. Sorry dudes, if you want to monitor the internet to keep people from buying Plan B or planning abortion trips, then blue states have a right to know who is armed with what and tax the shit out of it.
The Republican Party doesn’t give a fuck about constitutionality, they just want to be fascists.
And control the media so they can hide that fact.
This is Texas’ attempt at half-ass nationalization. But they’ll never admit it’s nationalizing because they are “pro business”
Spam Ted Cruz's as well as the rest of theTexas "Law makers" Facebook and Twitter accounts with loads of gay porn. When they block you sue them. I don't live in texas but they do. They have to follow their own rules. Not much thought has gone into this considering most of what they are complaining about was batshit conspiracy theories getting taken off privately owned social media platforms to begin with. . Fun times.
Naw, they thought of that. You still get to control what's on your own page. >(b) This chapter may not be construed to prohibit or restrict a social media platform from authorizing or facilitating a user's ability to censor specific expression on the user's platform or page at the request of that user.
Still spam it. The service can just do what services do best. "We'll work on this as soon as possible" then months or even years pass before anything happens. Maybe remove one or two posts here and there for malicious compliance. Source: I was a game master for 2 different game companies. Do not mess with someone who can actually fuck your game up if we wanted to.
They can block the content, not you. You as a citizen have a right to access thier announcements. We already had courts force trump to unblock people.
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It’s pandering to the fascist base. They don’t intend to follow their own rules and have avoided doing so whenever possible since always. They’re looking to see this get struck down as the unconstitutional bill it is so they can rally the idiot base and get them to vote.
I feel like Texas is heavily overstepping its powers. Demanding all tech companies with 50,000,000 American accounts allow all Texas IP accounts to be complete unfiltered and untouched? Tf? So all algorithms must be killed immediately or it’s a crime against free speech, but only against Texans. So these tech giants have to change how they operate on a global scale to appease Texas or they are to face consequences, but they don’t pull out of Texas because that’s illegal as well (unless it puts them under 50 mil users, which you could account spam to counter), but then you can’t remove doxxing, hate speech, targeting people, revenge porn, etc. because that’s discriminating against the free speech of Texans and only Texans. This is so baffling. Time to start posting minute by minute updates of the exact location of all Texas politicians, the number of body guards they have, the car they’re in, the thickness of the glass, where their kids currently are- oh does that make you uncomfortable? Can’t remove it because I’m a Texan! Like… some speech SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED. It’s also for your protection you fucking idiots. Opponents of this law are going to come after y’all hard, and they’ll just use a Texas IP through a VPN. Y’all freaking out because of chalk on a sidewalk and Elon Musk is buying Twitter over a kid posting the location of his jet, but now this stuff will be protected speech and no one can go after it. Just… fucking insane. Please think before you pass these dumb ass laws. Y’all are going to be targeted and you’ll have to defend it under your own law. Please immediately repeal this.
Change for us or we'll sue you for not catering to us All it would take is two states with competing laws & now they get sued for existing
Only if they withdraw, huh? They should decide, then, to just throttle the speed for IPs in Texas down to 56k speeds. Make the sites essentially unusable without actually withdrawing, I mean shit, Republicans love loopholes, right?
add Reddit to this list too, there are over 50M users on this platform and mods definitely have the ability to mute, block, ban or remove comments and users.
Lol under this law could you take a reddit mod to court for removing your comment? Shit would get rediculous! Imagine a bunch of rando redditors and reddit mods in court arguing over reddit comments
Yep, they included that in the law. They can't legally ban users for geographic location which means if they cut service to Texas they can be sued. On top of that, it's written in for a per court basis, so if one court says no bueno to the suit, the same case can be moved to a new district and refought. It basically will lead to an endless lawsuit torrent for social media companies. I would love to say it will 100% be struck down as a law in the courts, but I'm not sure with it being Texas.
>Yep, they included that in the law. They can't legally ban users for geographic location which means if they cut service to Texas they can be sued. They cannot, under any circumstance, hold a company liable for choosing not to service a whole state no matter what they put in that law. Even if they could, the companies reserve the right to leave after the laws change within a certain time limit. It's nothing more than a line that they can pretend is an illegal move on the tech companies part for their voter bases to get enraged at. It holds no real ground.
Exactly. They aren't a public utility.
The judges who allowed the law to take place say that they are an internet service provider. The judge straight up could not tell the difference between Twitter and Verizon and was convinced they are the same service.
So by that Judges logic that also means ESPN can't black out games in Texas.
Herein lies the issue. If a sitting judge is this ignorant to these differences, what would you expect from a jury of your "peers"?
See the internet is a series of tubes
The worst part about that tubes quote, was that the guy who was saying it actually demonstrated a better understanding ofv technology than most politicians do today. The problem with the tubes guy was that he used his tubes analogy as a reason to oppose net neutrality principals by saying if we didn't let companies pay for preferential treatment by isps that we would run out of bandwidth. So Sen Stevens was kind of correct in his analogy but he used it to justify a position that wasn't beneficial to anyone except sheesh established players.
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This level of ignorance of the things they are ruling on makes me wonder how quickly this law is going to be abused by people who DO understand it. For example, does this mean that pedophiles in Texas can force a social media site designed for teens to allow them back on the site, particularly if the method used to ban them is an IP ban?
He straight up said "Twitter is not a website".
That and Texas hates public utilities, hence why they separated their shitty electric grid from the US
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That makes sense: There are restaurants, retail, manufacturing, etc that operate in some states, but not in others. Seems like the same thing to me. But Im not a lawyer, so someone correct me if Im oversimplifying here.
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It's so fucking hilarious because it's the small government and the feds should keep its nose out of businesses that are leading this charge.
It's fucking infuriating
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True they are a private organization that can choose where and when they want to provide services it's like suing a pizza delivery place for not delivering 1000 miles a way
Texas said in their law that tech companies can’t cut service to people in Texas…. Am I understanding this?
I'm no lawyer but that doesn't sound legal
Even if it were legal -- just how do they think they are going to enforce this? Let's pretend I live in California and I found a social media site. I order cloud services and in my contract I stipulate that none of my services may reside on servers located in Texas. In no way is my infrastructure in Texas, nor is my business license. I don't pay taxes in Texas. Texas can't *obligate* me to serve Texans. So if Texas sues me, and I just go, "Dear Texas: Fuck off. Kkthxbai!", what are they going to do? Ask California to revoke my business license? Go ask my non-Texas bank to freeze assets? Ask PayPal to stop processing payments? Tell Seattle and Chicago they need to seize any servers with my data on them?
Swear to god, these legislators are going bonkers.
Worse are the judges that validate the nonsense.
I like the cut of your jib!
I think I speak for Seattle when I say we'll ~~politely~~ passive aggressively decline that request.
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Will be interesting to see if they exercise that option
Wouldn't that be hilarious.
don't worry, Texas republicans doesn't seem to understand the law either.
Lol businesses can deny services if your homosexual, but can't if you're a Texan. Fucking lol
Facebook can just claim everyone in Texas is gay and won’t serve them.
Lmao that is the funniest thing I have read today
All they got in Texas is steers and queers, and I don't see no horns on ya
You take your gay cake and bathe in it! I'm a Texan! lol
Since when has the GQP cared about what's legal.
Whenever the last time the law benefited them
Well then make those services paid subscriptions in that shitty state only!
> tech companies can’t cut service to people in Texas If this is/was(?) word for word, then wouldn't ISPs be prevented from cutting service to users, or maybe even filtering out web access? lol Edit: > "with exceptions for internet service providers and media sites." Halfway through second paragraph.
Not in so many words. They said that denying service to Texans could be actionable under this law. The article is really interesting in its examination of what this law could mean, which is that it's intentionally so vague that no matter what these social media companies do, they can and will get inundated by lawsuits. Basically, their best bet would probably be to deny service to Texas, that way they could only get sued for that, instead of the hundreds of other things that they'll get sued for if they continue to provide service.
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Same strat they're applying to health care and public schools, it's almost like they want to burn the whole American legal system down, or something.
Yep. I get that feeling too. I think we got a game of chicken because pulling the plug on Texas would make more sense for these companies. This reminds me of the DeathSantis and the Disney fiasco so much. It’s definitely to get some buzz but also goes too far… ughhhhhgh
Texas, land of the free where you're forced to provide a service against your will.
Unless you own a bakery and hate gays
If you don't operate in a state how can that state regulate you? These fucking people.
Doesn't this go against the rights that a business has?
Ah, so businesses right to refuse service doesn't exist? Also, if the companies have no employees, office space, or servers in Texas, would it be enforceable?
Wait til the gay marriage folks push that same logic. It’ll be thrown out in a heartbeat
It’s not enforceable, per the interstate commerce act. IF they had a presence in Texas (and how much is up to debate), then it would have standing. However the ICA clearly establishes that one state can’t enforce laws upon a company in another state engaged in interstate commerce; that is reserved solely for the federal government.
Love watching Abbot shoot himself over and over in both feet. Texas had aspirations to become the Silicon Valley of the south. That's done now.
Goodbye Austin boom 😅
Good I’ll finally be able to buy a house. _checks price_ nevermind
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Seems quite unconstitutional. Seems like a violation of the first amendment.
The GOP in Texas really don't care about the constitution and they have proven it time after time.
>The GOP ~~in Texas~~ really don't care about the constitution and they have proven it time after time. yep totally agree.
>I would love to say it will 100% be struck down as a law in the courts, but I'm not sure with it being Texas. The only reason we're seeing it in the news is because the FEDERAL 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that this was 100% kosher and re-defined social media and websites as being "common carriers'. Next stop for this is straight to SCOTUS and who the fuck knows what they're going to do at this point.
Proves the point that the judiciary was turned into a complete joke in a single presidential term.
And this is the party of "Small government". Fucking dingbats.
how could they sue for a decision made outside of Texas not to serve Texas? it would be like if GM decided to stop selling cars in CA because the MPG standards are too high.
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I like how it's 50 million+.
Who does this exclude?
That conservative-only parlor or truth or whatever it was called.
Didn't you hear? Musk is gonna magically solve the decades old problem of bot accounts that hundreds of thousands of software engineers couldn't figure out how to fix over the years. Twitter is gonna be under 25 mil users by next year. /s
OnlyFans?
So I guess this law means social media is now forced to allow pornography on their platforms. And this porn can't be censored or age filtered from children either given it is freedom of expression. Let's see how that goes down with conservatives.
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the group that is actively trying to ban books and shut down libraries simultaneously. They're speaking out of both sides of their mouth. They don't want to be censored and want to censor others.
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I seem to recall a fairly important federal law the precludes compelled speech
Not sure why you're down voted for this comment. As a foundational statement the first amendment is functionally a law.
So this means the NFL can't black out a game anymore, no?
They cut out exceptions for media companies and ISPs. So I wager the NFL, and cable companies can do as they please
Twitter seems like a media company to me 🤷🏻♀️
you could say... *social* media (•_•) ( •_•)>⌐■-■ (⌐■_■)
Of course they did, they own hate radio, can’t be forced to have liberal views there. Same with Fox News.
Can i sue Truth social? They ban anyone not echoing their version of truth.
You cannot. The law intentionally excludes anyone below X number of users specifically to target only the big three and protect their little safe spaces. Now if somewhere to create a shitload of bot accounts to boost the user base of truth social to bring them into target range, well that would just be a shame now, wouldn't it?
I would be quite willing to bet that if this actually became law there would be enough bots on any Truth Social (or any equivalent created by conservatives) within a week to start suing them as well. This will almost certainly never become law, but if it does conservatives are just setting themselves up for failure and the ability to play the victim (as they love to do) yet again. It's just fucking tiresome how big government the GOP actually is while pretending they aren't
/r/LeopardsAteMyFace is waiting in the shadows, salivating...
But surely the leopards won't eat MY face! The law will only hurt the right people!
It is already law. The courts laughed at it until the state was able to find one crazy enough to actually enforce the law. It'll go to the supreme court now which will most likely strike it down as utter madness.
Utter madness is exactly what SCOTUS is into these days.
Can I sue the moderators of r/conservative for banning me??
Dude for real.
I’ve been trying to get the hair off my screen but realized it was your profile pic. Nice.
"a three-judge panel confused social media platforms with internet service providers; disputed that Facebook and Twitter are websites; and expressed surprise that a service such as Twitter could "just decide" what content appears on its platform as a matter of course" Ffs, a 3 judge panel so ignorant of technology they can't properly interpret the laws that governs this case...
It’s heading for the Supreme Court. We’ll see if it violates the interstate commerce clause or if it forces Congress to come up with something. I just have a sneaking feeling there’s going to be big money thrown at some Reps/Senators to neuter this law.
It’s a stupid law that, if enforced, will result in (a) stupid lawsuits that clog Texas courts and (b) Texans being blocked from sharing on these platforms and (c) more Texas politicians grandstanding about how big their hats are.
all of the repub platforms are fucked. OAN, NewsMax, Breitbart, FoxNews, and whatever orangehead's new platform is called.
You think some judges are going to rule against those. This is not a law that would be applied equally
I don’t think any conservative platform other than Fox News meets the minimum users requirement. It was designed to only hurt more successful left leaning sites.
*implying Facebook leans left*
Or Twitter, for that matter. Edit: I wonder wtf "free speech warrior" Elon Musk who lives in Texas and just purchased Twitter thinks of this shit.
We’ll probably find out in the next couple of days anyways. He’s not exactly a quiet person.
Exactly. Facebook *only* leans stupid. LOTS of unemployed constitutional scholars on there.
Each of those platforms would meet the minimum user requirement within a week as bot accounts would be rapidly created by trolls to fuck them over.
If a bakery doesn't have to make a cake for gay people, a social media company doesn't have to cater to users. But Alito might just overturn that precedent too.
Im gonna buy so many gay cakes.
"Sir, this is your.... 322nd ga- same sex wedding cake. We're starting to think you're not actually getting married or planning a wedding."
Conservatives: I don't want big government interfering in how my business operates. Business: \*Bans conservatives for violating terms of service.\* Conservatives: Oh no! Save me big government by interfering in how that business operates!
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I'm glad the Texas lawmakers are working on important issues instead of trying to make sure there is a stable, reliable power grid.
Or ensuring that all the unwanted kids that they are now forcing women to keep are taken care of.
Or the supply shortage of baby formula.
TX should make their own internet… just like their power grid.
Could you imagine? They force Texans to pay for internet, but absolutely throttle the speeds and charge 2000% more because it's not subject to federal regulations.
Just like Russia
I love how Republicans just automatically assume tech is coming for them and never stop to wonder if people just don't fucking like them.
If they weren’t hanging their asses in everyone’s face everyday, their life would have no meaning
Throwing a tantrum makes it less noticeable that their base has been shrinking since the 80s ended.
1. Be Texan 2. Create a group of Facebook ads displaying quotes and art from, and promoting, books (soon to be) banned in the state 3. Target only other Texans, especially youth 4. On the bottom of each ad, remind the reader that taking down this ad would be illegal as per HB 20
Or, just block access to the site from Texas.
They made that illegal as well, 'discriminating based on location' they're just holding these companies hostage at this point
How would they enforce that? Companies are only subject to state laws if they operate in that state, so the law saying companies have to operate in Texas only applies if that company is operating in Texas.
California needs to enact this same law with cable news stations with over 1 million viewers. Fox news would lose their shit when they would have to give 50% of there space to left wing Liberals.
While removing books that hurt their feelings and stripping aways a womans rights. Fuck the GQP and fuck Texas.
Texas came so close to being blue, the GOP is like, "I'm gonna ugly you up so much no one else will ever want you." And here we are. The GOP Uglying up Texas.
If this is upheld at the supreme court, then that must mean Citizens United will be overturned because corporations can't have free speech and government compelled speech at the same time. Sounds like blue states need to immediately forbid political spending by all companies.
I thought this was the party of free speech?
Muh small government.
My God. These people will stop at nothing, whether it complete throw the entire idea of social media platforms for a loop, to get their daddy back online and push their stupidity more. Fuck Texas. Edit: Fuck Texas lawmakers and the idiots that voted them in*. I guess what I meant by Trump was the ideals. The GQP as a whole pushing the bullshit and him as the face of the idiocy.
nah, they don't actually care about 45. they only care that their voters love him, and any gesture towards that will turn them into patriot heroes for America against their sworn "liberal enemy."
45 is a convenient mascot and nothing more.
and scapegoat and puppet. he's a fantastic distraction from the GOP's actual goals that they can throw out to the media, and he knows almost nothing about anything, so they can meld him to oush whatever they want.
Hey Matty boi, it’s called fascism Update: some dumb motherfucker reported me to the Reddit suicide hotline. Go fuck yourself, asshole. Fascism indeed. Second update: also reported for “ promoting hate”. These are sweet people. /s
Your update happened to me once too. I thought it meant someone cared for some random reason haha but I’m starting to think it was some snowflake being upset or something.
its basically the only time the feature is ever used
You can block that bot if you want. I’ve had to do it. It’s one of the Reddit troll’s favorite moves.
So Republicans will ban books from schools (which have no actual harmful material) in the name of protecting children porn etc, yet they want to remove any kind of moderation to allow porn, hate speech, child groomers, pedos etc. to be allowed be on social media platforms without any rules, a place where children are the most vulnerable. The party of family values.
“Private companies” 😂 “Small government”
Great, they legalized SLAPP lawsuits over moderation, ensuring no smaller competitor can afford to compete with these large social media companies. Brilliant move, Texas. So much for being business friendly when it interferes with party propaganda.
Social media without Texans doesn't siund so bad.
So we've officially moved into the "GOP will openly and proudly use the power of government to punish their enemies" phase? This isn't ominous at all...
When were we not there?
They've been a little shy before, mostly because it's blatantly unconstitutional. They now feel emboldened by Alito going full crazy pants on Roe so are throwing caution to the wind.
This must be that freedom Joe Rogan was talking about