Briahna Joy Gray, former 2020 Sanders Campaign National Press Secretary, recently delivered a commentary on The Hill’s Rising about two significant bills regarding social media censorship. One, from Texas, blocked by an emergency order of the U.S. Supreme Court, would ban social media companies from removing posts based on the views they express. The case is pending in federal appeals court and may return to the Supreme Court. The other was a Florida law, in which a preliminary injunction was upheld by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals that would have prohibited social-media companies from “deplatforming” political candidates, from prioritizing or deprioritizing any post in the algorithm “by or about” a candidate, and from removing anything posted by a “journalistic enterprise” based on its content.
Gray claimed that if the Texas bill, HB20, had passed, “social media freedoms would have been seriously curtailed.” She described the Supreme Court justices who dissented from the bill as “anti-speech,” and suggests that the moderation social media platforms utilize (banning users, algorithmic deprioritization, suppression of news stories, etc.) are a part of their First Amendment rights. In the case of the Florida bill, Gray claimed that Republican lawmakers “couldn’t care less” about the First Amendment rights of these companies.
Knowing that the Supreme Court has ruled that corporations do have First Amendment rights and that the First Amendment does not limit private businesses, Gray’s characterization
— source scheerpost.com | Max Jones | Jul 20, 2022