The U.S. Supreme Court set Feb. 26 oral argument in NetChoice's and the Computer & Communications Industry Association's tandem First Amendment challenges to the Florida and Texas social media content moderation laws, said text-only entries Friday in dockets 22-277 and 22-555. The Constitution’s free speech right “protects the editorial discretion of websites and digital services from government intervention,” said CCIA President Matt Schruers in a statement Friday. Content moderation isn’t only “an essential trust and safety function,” it’s also “a First Amendment-protected activity,” he said. “After years of litigation, CCIA looks forward to having our constitutional challenges heard in the Supreme Court.” NetChoice didn't immediately comment, nor did the Republican attorneys general of Florida and Texas.
Amazon removed to U.S. District Court for Central California in Los Angeles Friday a class action filed Nov. 23 in Los Angeles County Superior Court in which five plaintiffs allege that the conditions of use that Amazon imposes on consumers to use or shop its platfoms prohibit them from mentioning Amazon or any of its brand names in any manner that “disparages or discredits” the company.
Cognizant Technology Solutions targeted “historically economically disadvantaged groups” in low-paying labor markets to perform the “grueling job” of social media content moderation, alleged a fraud complaint Thursday (docket 8:24-cv-00045) in U.S. District Court for Middle Florida in Tampa.
An Ohio law requiring age verification to access social media runs afoul of the U.S. Constitution, NetChoice said Friday. The tech industry group asked the U.S. District Court for Southern Ohio to block the 2023 law from taking effect Jan. 15. Ohio Lt. Gov. Jon Husted (R) lambasted the lawsuit as “cowardly but not unexpected.”
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The U.S. Supreme Court set Feb. 26 oral argument in NetChoice's and the Computer & Communications Industry Association's tandem First Amendment challenges to the Florida and Texas social media content moderation laws, said text-only entries Friday in dockets 22-277 and 22-555.
A dozen additional cases were transferred to In Re: Social Media Adolescent Addiction/Personal Injury Products Liability Litigation, said conditional transfer order 25 (docket 3047), which was finalized Tuesday before the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPML). The 12 cases, against Meta, Snap, TikTok and Google, were filed by school districts in Colorado, Maryland, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and South Carolina, said the order. The first 20 actions in the MDL were transferred Oct. 6, 2022, to the Northern District of California for coordinated or consolidated pretrial proceedings under U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers. So far, 127 case transfers have been finalized.
U.S. District Judge David Barlow for Utah in Salt Lake City granted in part the parties’ stipulated motion for an amended briefing schedule in NetChoice’s Dec. 20 motion for a preliminary injunction to block Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes (R) from enforcing the Social Media Regulation Act when it takes effect March 1 (see 2312230004), said the judge’s text-only docket order Tuesday (docket 2:23-cv-00911). Reyes’ deadline for filing an opposition to the injunction motion is Jan. 23, and NetChoice’s reply brief is due Feb. 6, said Barlow’s order. The parties were seeking deadlines of Jan. 31 and Feb. 12, respectively. Reyes’ response to the NetChoice complaint is due 21 days after Barlow rules on the motion for an injunction, as the parties requested, said the order. Due to the “issues being litigated," more extended deadlines "are unlikely to be workable" in light of the statute's fast-approaching March 1 effective date, said the order. NetChoice contends that the Utah statute is unconstitutional because it uses content-, viewpoint- and speaker-based definitions to restrict minors’ and adults’ ability to access and engage in protected speech. NetChoice also contends that the statute uses those definitions to restrict how certain websites organize, display and disseminate protected speech. NetChoice argues that the entire statute violates the First Amendment and the due process clause, and that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act preempts parts of it.
The secretaries of state of Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Maine, Minnesota, New Mexico, Oregon and Vermont are urging the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse the 5th U.S. Circuit Appeals Court’s Oct. 3 decision and vacate the injunction that bars officials from the White House and four federal agencies from conversing with social media companies about their content moderation policies (see 2310040001). All Democrats, the chief election officers in their states filed the Dec. 26 amicus brief in Murthy v. Missouri (docket 23-411).
Thursday’s denial of a preliminary injunction that X, formerly Twitter, requested to block California Attorney General Rob Bonta (D) from enforcing the state’s social media transparency law (AB-587) cleared Bonta to collect “terms of service” reports from social media companies. They are the first reports under the statute and came due when the law took effect Monday. Hereafter reports will be due each April 1 and Oct. 1, requiring platforms to describe how they're enforcing content moderation policies.