The Supreme Court has just blocked a Texas law that would have prevented social media companies from wrongfully censoring Texas just because they disagreed with their opinions.
The surprise in this ruling is that Kagan would have allowed the law to continue while the case is being heard, joining the side of Alito, Thomas, and Gorsuch:
NEW: The Supreme Court BLOCKS Texas from enforcing a controversial new state law that seeks to ban large social media platforms like Twitter from moderating content based on users' viewpoints.
In a surprising vote breakdown, Kagan joins Thomas, Alito, & Gorsuch in dissent.
— SCOTUSblog (@SCOTUSblog) May 31, 2022
Here's the court's brief order blocking Texas from implementing the law for now, with a six-page dissent from Alito: https://t.co/nb2YE3JWJX
Note that Kagan did not sign onto Alito's dissent, though she indicated that she would have allowed the law to take effect.
— SCOTUSblog (@SCOTUSblog) May 31, 2022
In case you need a reminder of what this law actually does, here’s what Governor Abbott’s press release said about it last year when Abbott signed it:
“Social media websites have become our modern-day public square. They are a place for healthy public debate where information should be able to flow freely — but there is a dangerous movement by social media companies to silence conservative viewpoints and ideas. That is wrong, and we will not allow it in Texas.
House Bill 20 prevents social media companies with more than 50 million monthly users banning users simply based on their political viewpoints. The law also requires several consumer protection disclosures and processes related to content management on the social media sites to which the bill applies. These sites must disclose their content management and moderation policies and implement a complaint and appeals process for content they remove, providing a reason for the removal and a review of their decision. They also must review and remove illegal content within 48 hours. House Bill 20 also prohibits email service providers from impeding the transmission of email messages based on content.
While this is a temporary injunction, I guess we can assume that both Kavanaugh and Barrett believe those contesting this law will win their argument. Whatever the case, this injunction doesn’t bode well for the final ruling.