Trade Group NetChoice is once again criticizing the Texas “free speech” law.
The law is aimed at preventing social media platforms from suspending accounts or removing posts based on political ideology. NetChoice said the new law will allow Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other social media platforms to be inundated with “objectionable content” and become “unacceptable” to users.
NetChoice is suing Texas and Florida over the respective free speech laws, arguing that the laws violate the First Amendment.
“Allowing HB 20 to take effect will inflict significant harm on Texans by threatening the safety of users, creators, and businesses that use these websites to reach audiences in a family-friendly way,” Steve DelBianco, President and CEO of NetChoice, said in a statement last month. “No American should ever be forced to navigate through harmful and offensive images, videos and posts.”
“Given that Florida’s similar law has been enjoined because of constitutional violations, Texas should repeal this flawed attempt to force private businesses to host political speech against their will,” he added.
However, NetChoice believes the Texas law is “even more unconstitutional.”
“Not only does it compel private online businesses to host content they would otherwise remove or restrict, it applies ‘viewpoint-based restrictions’ to all users and specifically prevents websites from deciding based on the ‘viewpoint’ expressed in the post,” DelBianco continued. “In fact, it is for this reason HB 20 is even more unconstitutional than Florida’s law and cannot withstand First Amendment scrutiny.”
Association members of NetChoice include Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, Apple and more.
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