10 ms·

Federal judge blocks Florida law aimed at punishing social media companies

53 points by throwawaysea 5y ago

paxys 5y ago
This was always going to be the end result, but Florida politicians got the PR they wanted.
CountDrewku 5y ago
>"The legislation compels providers to host speech that violates their standards—speech they otherwise would not host—and forbids providers from speaking as they otherwise would," Hinkle wrote. Talk about contradictory statements. In other words "we want to be the arbiter of allowed speech and continue our monopolistic conglomerate with other companies to shut down what we don't like in hopes of garnering the favor of the current party in power" If someone Trump like gets back into office this is going to backfire in the faces of people supporting this stuff.
- lame-robot-hoax 5y ago
  It’s really not contradictory at all. https://mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/933/compelled-speech https://mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/933/compelled-speec... https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-1/flag-salutes-and-other-compelled-speech https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-1/f...
- takeda 5y ago
  1st amendment is to prevent the government to punish you (for example jailing) for speaking about something the government doesn't want as well as forcing to say something you don't agree with (for example look at Navalny in Russia or Protasevich in Belarus). Since corporations are also people as SCOTUS ruled they have similar protections. Asking them to host content they otherwise don't approve might be like I would require you to say great things about Biden when you're a Trump supporter. It would suppress your freedom of speech, don't you think? It's like Russia requiring to say great things about Putin and Belarus about Lukashenko.
- dddddddan 5y ago
  This just shows you don't understand what the 1st amendment is.
  - CountDrewku 5y ago
    I understand it perfectly and your "it's a private business" retort doesn't hold up in my opinion. Feel free to read my multiple other comments. The government can restrict your speech by means other than passing laws.
- wonderwonder 5y ago
  It's their platform they can censor who they want. Same concept if you had a personal blog and deleted certain comments and banned posters for posting things you disagreed with. Sure, some people may complain and say you banned X while allowing Y but at the end of the day its your blog and you can do what you want. The government certainly should not be able to come in and fine you for deleting comments on your blog.
  - barbacoa 5y ago
    "We don't serve colored folks here."
    - dddddddan 5y ago
      I think I missed where politicians are a protected class.
      - Anon1096 5y ago
        Can government force companies (say, Parlor or Gab) to display posts from a protected class they wouldn't want to host? Forcing a platform to display women or black or other group's posts seems like it'd be equally anti-First Amendment to me.
        anoonmoose 5y ago
        It is my (layman, not-a-lawyer, possibly incorrect) understanding that, if they were to state that they did not allow a protect class to join and banned all members of that class from joining, they would encounter significant legal issues. Which would most likely be avoided by just enacting the policy silently (risky) or becoming an invite-only service (probably legal).
        wonderwonder 5y ago
        Its an interesting question, the gay wedding cake case "Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission" was a first test and it seems to say probably not but the final judgement was based on religious freedom. Will probably need another case to determine. Regarding my personal opinion, I think they should be allowed to deny service to who they want as its a core feature of the business. I think this is different than a say black / white restricted eating areas as the core feature of those business' is to feed people, not to facilitate personal race / sexuality based interactions. Just my opinion though I am sure there are edge cases that would make me pause.
- tenebrisalietum 5y ago
  I'm not seeing contradictory statements? - The legislation compels providers to host speech that violates their standards—speech they otherwise would not host - and forbids providers from speaking as they otherwise would These aren't contradictory. If a site does want to host a politician's speech then they can?
  - Dracophoenix 5y ago
    And if a site doesn't? The issue is one of compelled association. The First Amendment isn't just about choosing to be involved with who you want but also choosing not to be involved with who you don't want. This law abridges the rights of Facebook et al and potentially every website on the Internet to disassociate themselves from certain individuals.
    - tenebrisalietum 5y ago
      I know. I agree. I didn't disagree with the original statement.
wonderwonder 5y ago
This was one of the most blatantly anti first amendment expansion of government power I had seen in a long time. Glad it was rejected by the courts and hope that the new law which is somehow even worse requiring the reporting of student and professors political leanings is blocked very soon as well. MccArthyism should remain dead in the past.
- barbacoa 5y ago
  The law wasn't rejected, the judge issued an injunction until the lawsuit is settled. Nor does the judge indicate he thinks this is blatantly a violation of the first amendment. "That brings us to issues about First Amendment treatment of social-media providers that are not so clearly settled. The plaintiffs say, in effect, that they should be treated like any other speaker. The State says, in contrast, that social-media providers are more like common carriers, transporting information from one person to another much as a train transports people or products from one city to another. The truth is in the middle." https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flnd.371253/gov.uscourts.flnd.371253.113.0_1.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flnd.37...
  - jcranmer 5y ago
    That is disingenuous. The standard for a preliminary injunction is "likelihood of success on the merits." The judge has to find that the law probably violates the First Amendment to issue the injunction. The second-to-last sentence says: "The legislation does not survive strict scrutiny."--in other words, he found that the law violated the First Amendment. Indeed, the judge clearly believes that this is a blatant violation of the First Amendment. His commentary that you are citing is merely an indication that's it not as hilariously flagrantly violating it as the plaintiffs contended.
- cmxch 5y ago
  Given the general lack of conservative academics, the reporting should stay. The status quo currently protects academic freedom in one way but fails to protect for any other.
g42gregory 5y ago
I am curious about why people think that this is an attack on first amendment? I thought the point of this legislation to preserve first amendment right of the users. Maybe this is a choice between first amendment rights of the dominant platform companies vs. first amendment rights of 100s million of their users? If that's the case, wouldn't we want to take the users' side in this issue vs. platforms?
- anotherman554 5y ago
  You don't have a first amendment right to star on a TV show on NBC, or to have your book published by the publisher of Harry Potter, or to have a news article you wrote placed on the New York Times front page, or to have a social media company publish your "thoughts" for the world to see. Your desire for a social media company to print what you write is not a first amendment issue at all.
  - barbacoa 5y ago
    Interesting SCOTUS found you have free speech rights at shopping malls in California. https://mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/583/pruneyard-shopping-center-v-robins https://mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/583/pruneyard-shopp...
    - vkou 5y ago
      Did they also find that you have the free speech rights to commandeer the mall's PA system?
    - jcranmer 5y ago
      Quoting from the opinion in this case here: > The California Supreme Court held the individuals had the right, under state law, to engage in the proposed activity. The ruling did not compel the shopping center to say anything at all, and the ruling did not prohibit the center from saying anything it wished, when and how it wished. And it doesn't apply because: > FAIR and PruneYard establish that compelling a person to allow a visitor access to the person’s property, for the purpose of speaking, is not a First Amendment violation, so long as the person is not compelled to speak, the person is not restricted from speaking, and the message of the visitor is not likely to be attributed to the person. The Florida statutes now at issue, unlike the state actions in FAIR and PruneYard, explicitly forbid social media platforms from appending their own statements to posts by some users. And the statutes compel the platforms to change their own speech in other respects, including, for example, by dictating how the platforms may arrange speech on their sites. This is a far greater burden on the platforms’ own speech than was involved in FAIR or PruneYard.
trhway 5y ago
San Jose has just made it illegal to promote on social media side shows/street races. While intention of the law is good - nobody makes bad intentioned laws after all - one can wonder about what get under "promotion". It sounds pretty similar to the laws in Russia against unpermitted protests - you mention date/time on social media or forward such a post, and you're a toast.
- mjevans 5y ago
  Odd, they should be grateful for the tips on where to prominently station traffic safety officers complete with notice the parked car lights turned on. Though I would prefer if they didn't blep the sirens and crap and thus avoid more of a public nusience than the race would have been. I would also prefer the elimination of all traffic cameras as taxation devices; require an officer there for judgement and to be close by in case other civic issues arise. These matters should be about public safety, not trying to entrap people in poorly marked speed traps nor lights that are timed to encourage unsafe driving.
lenkite 5y ago
Basically, a political party can point and tell private social media companies whom to ban and silence - its all fine and dandy.
- anoonmoose 5y ago
  No, they can't tell; they can ask, though.
nonameiguess 5y ago
The explicit exception for Disney was pretty brazen, but I guess the legislators knew this law had no chance of actually standing anyway. Just more grandstanding to whip everyone's current favorite whipping boys. I have no love of Facebook and Google. Don't use their services. But for better or worse, they own their data centers. Your account is a set of files on servers they can burn to the ground if they so choose. The rights of property owners have always been first and foremost the most sacrosanct of all rights enshrined in American tradition. Whether you agree with that or not, it's the way our Constitution works. You can't compel private property owners to host content on their property. They can ban, at will, for any reason. It doesn't have to be fair. It doesn't have to balanced. They're allowed to be politically motivated. They're allowed to be wrong. If you think we need a public digital square, then it needs to actually be public. These are legislators. They can propose a publicly funded alternative to private social media that would have to respect free speech rights because it would be part of the government.
throwawaysea 5y ago
This is an interesting discussion with many different opinions debating where first amendment lines are drawn. Personally, I am not sure what makes regulation of social media companies any different from regulation of utilities. Your electric company cannot cut off your power and deplatform you because of what you're posting online. Why should a social media provider, who is ultimately a dumb conduit for the public town square like any other telecom service, be able to do so? We regularly regulate companies for all sorts of purposes. For example, businesses are forced to not discriminate between customers based on certain protected traits. That is also a form of controlling the speech of companies but we don't call it out as a first amendment violation. Why not just treat political opinion as a protected trait as well? But leaving the 'technical' aspects of the debate aside, the Florida law ultimately protects the free speech of individuals which makes me think it is preferable to protecting the free speech of the companies. This is especially true when the companies are incredibly huge and influential, with more users than most countries. They are effectively governments when it comes to their ability to shut down speech, and we've seen their power in action when they banned Trump in unison. That kind of power should have limitations - the same limitations we place on our government's ability to control speech.
- jcranmer 5y ago
  > Why should a social media provider, who is ultimately a dumb conduit for the public town square like any other telecom service, be able to do so? Do you think that Hacker News is really a "dumb conduit" for the public town square? Or how about your internal company Slack or message board? Review comments on your local retailer's website? Your local newspaper's comments section? These are all examples that would absolutely be classified as social media per Florida's law (modulo size requirements). If you're going to argue they're not social media, then what is the basis for drawing the distinction? The problem with the law is--especially as the commentary of the legislators and De Santis make clear--it's really about punishing Facebook and Twitter, and not about protecting users at all. Indeed, if you followed the actual hearing itself, the state effectively tried to defend the absurdities of the law by basically saying that the only sane way to interpret it is that the only way for Facebook et al to violate the law is to not follow their own defined policies.
- 5y ago
subculture 5y ago
Dammit, I was hoping Twitter would change their ToS to exclude any politicians from Florida from signing up to the service.

53 points by throwawaysea 5y ago

This was always going to be the end result, but Florida politicians got the PR they wanted.

>"The legislation compels providers to host speech that violates their standards—speech they otherwise would not host—and forbids providers from speaking as they otherwise would," Hinkle wrote. Talk about contradictory statements. In other words "we want to be the arbiter of allowed speech and continue our monopolistic conglomerate with other companies to shut down what we don't like in hopes of garnering the favor of the current party in power" If someone Trump like gets back into office this is going to backfire in the faces of people supporting this stuff.

lame-robot-hoax 5y ago
It’s really not contradictory at all. https://mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/933/compelled-speech https://mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/933/compelled-speec... https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-1/flag-salutes-and-other-compelled-speech https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-1/f...
takeda 5y ago
1st amendment is to prevent the government to punish you (for example jailing) for speaking about something the government doesn't want as well as forcing to say something you don't agree with (for example look at Navalny in Russia or Protasevich in Belarus). Since corporations are also people as SCOTUS ruled they have similar protections. Asking them to host content they otherwise don't approve might be like I would require you to say great things about Biden when you're a Trump supporter. It would suppress your freedom of speech, don't you think? It's like Russia requiring to say great things about Putin and Belarus about Lukashenko.
dddddddan 5y ago
This just shows you don't understand what the 1st amendment is.
- CountDrewku 5y ago
  I understand it perfectly and your "it's a private business" retort doesn't hold up in my opinion. Feel free to read my multiple other comments. The government can restrict your speech by means other than passing laws.
wonderwonder 5y ago
It's their platform they can censor who they want. Same concept if you had a personal blog and deleted certain comments and banned posters for posting things you disagreed with. Sure, some people may complain and say you banned X while allowing Y but at the end of the day its your blog and you can do what you want. The government certainly should not be able to come in and fine you for deleting comments on your blog.
- barbacoa 5y ago
  "We don't serve colored folks here."
  - dddddddan 5y ago
    I think I missed where politicians are a protected class.
    - Anon1096 5y ago
      Can government force companies (say, Parlor or Gab) to display posts from a protected class they wouldn't want to host? Forcing a platform to display women or black or other group's posts seems like it'd be equally anti-First Amendment to me.
      - anoonmoose 5y ago
        It is my (layman, not-a-lawyer, possibly incorrect) understanding that, if they were to state that they did not allow a protect class to join and banned all members of that class from joining, they would encounter significant legal issues. Which would most likely be avoided by just enacting the policy silently (risky) or becoming an invite-only service (probably legal).
      - wonderwonder 5y ago
        Its an interesting question, the gay wedding cake case "Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission" was a first test and it seems to say probably not but the final judgement was based on religious freedom. Will probably need another case to determine. Regarding my personal opinion, I think they should be allowed to deny service to who they want as its a core feature of the business. I think this is different than a say black / white restricted eating areas as the core feature of those business' is to feed people, not to facilitate personal race / sexuality based interactions. Just my opinion though I am sure there are edge cases that would make me pause.
tenebrisalietum 5y ago
I'm not seeing contradictory statements? - The legislation compels providers to host speech that violates their standards—speech they otherwise would not host - and forbids providers from speaking as they otherwise would These aren't contradictory. If a site does want to host a politician's speech then they can?
- Dracophoenix 5y ago
  And if a site doesn't? The issue is one of compelled association. The First Amendment isn't just about choosing to be involved with who you want but also choosing not to be involved with who you don't want. This law abridges the rights of Facebook et al and potentially every website on the Internet to disassociate themselves from certain individuals.
  - tenebrisalietum 5y ago
    I know. I agree. I didn't disagree with the original statement.

wonderwonder 5y ago

This was one of the most blatantly anti first amendment expansion of government power I had seen in a long time. Glad it was rejected by the courts and hope that the new law which is somehow even worse requiring the reporting of student and professors political leanings is blocked very soon as well. MccArthyism should remain dead in the past.

barbacoa 5y ago
The law wasn't rejected, the judge issued an injunction until the lawsuit is settled. Nor does the judge indicate he thinks this is blatantly a violation of the first amendment. "That brings us to issues about First Amendment treatment of social-media providers that are not so clearly settled. The plaintiffs say, in effect, that they should be treated like any other speaker. The State says, in contrast, that social-media providers are more like common carriers, transporting information from one person to another much as a train transports people or products from one city to another. The truth is in the middle." https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flnd.371253/gov.uscourts.flnd.371253.113.0_1.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flnd.37...
- jcranmer 5y ago
  That is disingenuous. The standard for a preliminary injunction is "likelihood of success on the merits." The judge has to find that the law probably violates the First Amendment to issue the injunction. The second-to-last sentence says: "The legislation does not survive strict scrutiny."--in other words, he found that the law violated the First Amendment. Indeed, the judge clearly believes that this is a blatant violation of the First Amendment. His commentary that you are citing is merely an indication that's it not as hilariously flagrantly violating it as the plaintiffs contended.
cmxch 5y ago
Given the general lack of conservative academics, the reporting should stay. The status quo currently protects academic freedom in one way but fails to protect for any other.

g42gregory 5y ago

I am curious about why people think that this is an attack on first amendment? I thought the point of this legislation to preserve first amendment right of the users. Maybe this is a choice between first amendment rights of the dominant platform companies vs. first amendment rights of 100s million of their users? If that's the case, wouldn't we want to take the users' side in this issue vs. platforms?

anotherman554 5y ago
You don't have a first amendment right to star on a TV show on NBC, or to have your book published by the publisher of Harry Potter, or to have a news article you wrote placed on the New York Times front page, or to have a social media company publish your "thoughts" for the world to see. Your desire for a social media company to print what you write is not a first amendment issue at all.
- barbacoa 5y ago
  Interesting SCOTUS found you have free speech rights at shopping malls in California. https://mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/583/pruneyard-shopping-center-v-robins https://mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/583/pruneyard-shopp...
  - vkou 5y ago
    Did they also find that you have the free speech rights to commandeer the mall's PA system?
  - jcranmer 5y ago
    Quoting from the opinion in this case here: > The California Supreme Court held the individuals had the right, under state law, to engage in the proposed activity. The ruling did not compel the shopping center to say anything at all, and the ruling did not prohibit the center from saying anything it wished, when and how it wished. And it doesn't apply because: > FAIR and PruneYard establish that compelling a person to allow a visitor access to the person’s property, for the purpose of speaking, is not a First Amendment violation, so long as the person is not compelled to speak, the person is not restricted from speaking, and the message of the visitor is not likely to be attributed to the person. The Florida statutes now at issue, unlike the state actions in FAIR and PruneYard, explicitly forbid social media platforms from appending their own statements to posts by some users. And the statutes compel the platforms to change their own speech in other respects, including, for example, by dictating how the platforms may arrange speech on their sites. This is a far greater burden on the platforms’ own speech than was involved in FAIR or PruneYard.

trhway 5y ago

San Jose has just made it illegal to promote on social media side shows/street races. While intention of the law is good - nobody makes bad intentioned laws after all - one can wonder about what get under "promotion". It sounds pretty similar to the laws in Russia against unpermitted protests - you mention date/time on social media or forward such a post, and you're a toast.

mjevans 5y ago
Odd, they should be grateful for the tips on where to prominently station traffic safety officers complete with notice the parked car lights turned on. Though I would prefer if they didn't blep the sirens and crap and thus avoid more of a public nusience than the race would have been. I would also prefer the elimination of all traffic cameras as taxation devices; require an officer there for judgement and to be close by in case other civic issues arise. These matters should be about public safety, not trying to entrap people in poorly marked speed traps nor lights that are timed to encourage unsafe driving.

lenkite 5y ago

Basically, a political party can point and tell private social media companies whom to ban and silence - its all fine and dandy.

anoonmoose 5y ago
No, they can't tell; they can ask, though.

nonameiguess 5y ago

The explicit exception for Disney was pretty brazen, but I guess the legislators knew this law had no chance of actually standing anyway. Just more grandstanding to whip everyone's current favorite whipping boys. I have no love of Facebook and Google. Don't use their services. But for better or worse, they own their data centers. Your account is a set of files on servers they can burn to the ground if they so choose. The rights of property owners have always been first and foremost the most sacrosanct of all rights enshrined in American tradition. Whether you agree with that or not, it's the way our Constitution works. You can't compel private property owners to host content on their property. They can ban, at will, for any reason. It doesn't have to be fair. It doesn't have to balanced. They're allowed to be politically motivated. They're allowed to be wrong. If you think we need a public digital square, then it needs to actually be public. These are legislators. They can propose a publicly funded alternative to private social media that would have to respect free speech rights because it would be part of the government.

throwawaysea 5y ago

This is an interesting discussion with many different opinions debating where first amendment lines are drawn. Personally, I am not sure what makes regulation of social media companies any different from regulation of utilities. Your electric company cannot cut off your power and deplatform you because of what you're posting online. Why should a social media provider, who is ultimately a dumb conduit for the public town square like any other telecom service, be able to do so? We regularly regulate companies for all sorts of purposes. For example, businesses are forced to not discriminate between customers based on certain protected traits. That is also a form of controlling the speech of companies but we don't call it out as a first amendment violation. Why not just treat political opinion as a protected trait as well? But leaving the 'technical' aspects of the debate aside, the Florida law ultimately protects the free speech of individuals which makes me think it is preferable to protecting the free speech of the companies. This is especially true when the companies are incredibly huge and influential, with more users than most countries. They are effectively governments when it comes to their ability to shut down speech, and we've seen their power in action when they banned Trump in unison. That kind of power should have limitations - the same limitations we place on our government's ability to control speech.

jcranmer 5y ago
> Why should a social media provider, who is ultimately a dumb conduit for the public town square like any other telecom service, be able to do so? Do you think that Hacker News is really a "dumb conduit" for the public town square? Or how about your internal company Slack or message board? Review comments on your local retailer's website? Your local newspaper's comments section? These are all examples that would absolutely be classified as social media per Florida's law (modulo size requirements). If you're going to argue they're not social media, then what is the basis for drawing the distinction? The problem with the law is--especially as the commentary of the legislators and De Santis make clear--it's really about punishing Facebook and Twitter, and not about protecting users at all. Indeed, if you followed the actual hearing itself, the state effectively tried to defend the absurdities of the law by basically saying that the only sane way to interpret it is that the only way for Facebook et al to violate the law is to not follow their own defined policies.
5y ago

subculture 5y ago

Dammit, I was hoping Twitter would change their ToS to exclude any politicians from Florida from signing up to the service.