NetChoice, LLC and a lobbying group, CCIA, launched the original lawsuit on behalf of Big Tech platforms. I filed an amicus brief in support of Texas in NetChoice v. Paxton, 21-51178, before the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. The appeals court correctly stayed the preliminary injunction. This stay has now been vacated by the Supreme Court, rendering H.B. 20 unenforceable once again. Justices Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch, and Kagan dissented. Justice Alito wrote the dissenting opinion, on behalf of himself and Justices Thomas and Gorsuch.
Texas law H.B. 20 restricted viewpoint censorship by big platforms and imposed nominal reporting requirements on them. Big Tech platforms claim that their First Amendment rights apply not only to their own speech (which is not questioned), but also to their consumers’ speech on their consumers’ property. We, Big Tech consumers, speak (or post) in our homes, on our smartphones, and we pay for the internet traffic to and from those platforms, all while letting the platforms harvest mountains of private data from us. Yet, somehow, Big Tech convinced SCOTUS to use the First Amendment not to protect freedom of speech, but to suppress it…
