3 ms·

For whatever it's worth, I disagree. There's a dominant belief floating around that social media corporations are free to mass-manipulate, enjoying indemnity fr

For whatever it's worth, I disagree. There's a dominant belief floating around that social media corporations are free to mass-manipulate, enjoying indemnity from the misdeeds of their users while restricting any user-generated content that disrupts their commercial or political narratives. In reality this belief has not been tested by the U.S. Supreme Court, and now a representative from that very court is pre-emptively deconstructing all the prior legal basis for that belief existing. If this doesn't serve as a warning shot I'm not sure what does.

otterley 6y ago
In my view, that balance is for Congress to decide (subject to the First Amendment), not the Court - and I'm frankly surprised that Justice Thomas -- a self-described "textualist" -- isn't giving more deference to social media's right not to republish views with which it disagrees.
- henriquez 6y ago
  In his opinion Justice Thomas explains why the law, as written by Congress, does not provide the degree of broad legal immunity that people think it does. He explains how past rulings in lower courts are interpretations of the "spirit" of the law, not the letter of the law. In that sense he is completely deferring to Congress.
  - gamblor956 6y ago
    No, Thomas is arguing that all of the cases he's cited were wrongly decided, even though many of those cases take textualist approaches to section 230. In fact, his argument boils down to: these websites in these cited cases did things I consider immoral, so the fact that section 230 explicitly protects the providers in these institutes is wrong because these companies were somehow actually the publishers of the content on their website. Thomas never once supports his claim that the websites became publishers in any of the cases he cites. In fact, Thomas is attempting to rewrite section 230, by trying to limit provider protections to just the safe harbor provided in section 230(c)(2).

otterley 6y ago

In my view, that balance is for Congress to decide (subject to the First Amendment), not the Court - and I'm frankly surprised that Justice Thomas -- a self-described "textualist" -- isn't giving more deference to social media's right not to republish views with which it disagrees.

henriquez 6y ago
In his opinion Justice Thomas explains why the law, as written by Congress, does not provide the degree of broad legal immunity that people think it does. He explains how past rulings in lower courts are interpretations of the "spirit" of the law, not the letter of the law. In that sense he is completely deferring to Congress.
- gamblor956 6y ago
  No, Thomas is arguing that all of the cases he's cited were wrongly decided, even though many of those cases take textualist approaches to section 230. In fact, his argument boils down to: these websites in these cited cases did things I consider immoral, so the fact that section 230 explicitly protects the providers in these institutes is wrong because these companies were somehow actually the publishers of the content on their website. Thomas never once supports his claim that the websites became publishers in any of the cases he cites. In fact, Thomas is attempting to rewrite section 230, by trying to limit provider protections to just the safe harbor provided in section 230(c)(2).