Supreme Court Keeps on Hold Efforts in Texas, Florida To Regulate Social Media Platforms
The justices returned the cases to lower courts in challenges from trade associations for the companies, which claimed that the laws violated the platforms’ speech rights.
Lawsuit Against Meta Asks If Facebook Users Have Right To Control Their Feeds
The lawsuit centers on a provision of Section 230, which is often used to protect internet companies from liability for things posted on their sites.
Oversight Board Urges Meta To Rethink Its Policy on Manipulated Media
An oversight board is criticizing Facebook owner's policies as “incoherent” and insufficient to address the flood of online disinformation targeting elections.
First Amendment Challenge to Maryland’s Digital Ad Tax Clears Legal Hurdle
A three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed with a lower federal court’s decision to dismiss the challenge on First Amendment grounds.
A dozen Philadelphia police officers who sued the city after they were disciplined and fired for offensive Facebook posts can pursue their First Amendment lawsuit against the city, a federal appeals court ruled June 8.
A Social Media Censorship Law is Upheld in Texas, Lyrissa Lidsky Weighs In
First Amendment lawyer Lyrissa Lidsky weighs in on a recently upheld social media censorship law in Texas that would bar platforms with more than 50 million users from removing content with political viewpoints. A different circuit court in Florida filed a preliminary injunction against a similar law. Since both federal appeals courts disagreed, only the Supreme Court can decide if the platforms have a First Amendment right to censor, or if they don’t.
California School Board Trustees Lose Suit Over Blocking Users on Social Media
The three-judge panel for the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit argued that annoyance and concern that the couple's posts were distracting others and interfering with others commenting wasn’t corroborated by the facts.
Texas’ Social Media Law is Unconstitutional, Federal Court Rules
On December 1st, a federal court in Texas issued a preliminary injunction against Texas’ social media law, HB 20, for violating platforms’ First Amendment right to moderate the third-party content they disseminate. "HB 20 prohibits virtually all content moderation, the very tool that social media platforms employ to make their platforms safe, useful, and enjoyable for users," U.S. District Court Judge Robert Pitman wrote.