Too big for its britches
Freedom! Private enterprise! The boss is always right! Innovation!
Texas has made it illegal for social media platforms to ban users “based on their political viewpoints”.
Prominent Republican politicians have accused Facebook, Twitter and others of censoring conservative views. Former US president Donald Trump was banned from Facebook and Twitter after a group of his supporters attacked the Capitol in January.
The social networks have all denied stifling conservative views. However, they do enforce terms of service which prohibit content such as incitement to violence and co-ordinated disinformation.
Well no wonder Greg Abbott doesn’t like that.
(What about jurisdiction though? Can states pass laws that restrict global communications? I wouldn’t have thought Texas has the power to tell Twitter and Facebook what to do.)
Critics say the law does not respect the constitutional right of private businesses to decide what sort of content is allowed on their platforms.
“This bill abandons conservative values, violates the First Amendment, and forces websites to host obscene, anti-semitic, racist, hateful and otherwise awful content,” said Steve DelBianco, president of NetChoice trade association.
“Moderation of user posts is crucial to keeping the internet safe for Texas families, but this bill would put the Texas government in charge of content policies.”
Along with obscene, anti-semitic, racist, and hateful, social media content is often threatening, stalkerish, bullying, intimidating.
Texas is just showing off at this point.
I’m sure that this is more important than making sure that the Texas power grid is not going to shut down for a month when the cold wind blows this coming winter.
Do we really like social media companies banning people the way they do though? I’m not sure that I want Texas deciding if banning is valid but at the same time it’s not like Twitter has a good record.
Twitter is a goddamn waste of time.
Abbott seems to forget that Trump was not banned for his political opinions but because of hateful, nasty, inciting speech. People should be banned for that. Twitter is not consistent in the application of its own rules, however. Rape or death threats by trans activists seem to be okay, but it’s “hate speech” to say that men cannot become women. I don’t know what the answer is, but it is definitely not letting Texas decide what is acceptable and what isn’t.
Trump is really the only ban I’m unambiguously behind… He should’ve been banned when he was threatening nuclear war.
For the first time in my life, I think I might be participating in a boycott. I was looking at a purchase this week, and then realized the vendor is based in Texas. Absolutely no political content, I have no idea what the owner of the business thinks. But I am now uncomfortable doing business with firms in Texas. I don’t think there is a neutral middle ground of disinterest there anymore.
It’s quite typical of people demanding “Freeze Peach” for their conservative views, to want to have access to hassle, troll, or threaten anyone who disagrees with them.