Don't Mess with Texas?

In an interesting bid to push transparency on social media platforms, the state of Texas passed a bill in September of 2021 known as the Texas House Bill 20 (Texas HB 20). What does the bill do/say? In a nutshell, the law would allow Texas to impose censorship limitations on social media companies active in Texas. In addition, it defines an acceptable use policy that all social media companies who fit the law's specified requirements would need to have readily available to the users as well as enforce. The acceptable use policy would define what type of content is allowed on the social media platform, have the company define what they plan to do in order to ensure only the content described is what is posted, and what will happen to anything posted that is outside of what the social media platform has defined as acceptable. It also notes that the social media platform must have some sort of complaint intake mechanism for users to report anything that violates the acceptable use policy or shows illegal content/illegal activity. In addition, the social media platform would have to publish a biannual transparency report that includes the number of instances the platform was informed of illegal activity, illegal content, or policy violating content and it defines how such content should be handled. Surprise surprise, demonetization and removal are at the top of the list.

Texas HB 20 wouldn't apply to all companies; in fact, the law states that it would apply to social media companies with more than 50 million active users in a calendar month. So, is this an active law? In short, yes... sort of. It is important to note that in December of 2021 the law was blocked on First Amendment grounds, because corporate entities have the right to freedom of speech and there are portions of the law that could be considered a violation of that right. For example, if the social media platform does not support certain opinions, but it is not something that is outright banned in the acceptable use policy then the social media platform would not be able to bar those sorts of posts, nor would it be able to adjust its algorithm in order to minimize views to those opinions. Anyway, Texas appealed to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals and on May 11, 2022, the ruling was lifted which is why we are hearing about it now.

So, what does that mean? Well, for starters, large social media platforms will have to be transparent about what is or is not allowed on their platform. It would also not allow social media platforms to promote or demote posts or opinions that align one way - for example, they would not be able to block or post warnings concerning content that could be considered false or "extreme" as long as the content is not illegal and in line with their acceptable use policy. Essentially, it would force social media companies to either plainly state that their platform can only be used for specific opinions/content or they would no longer be able to respond to nor bar the publishing of speech that the social media platform does not agree with.

What now? Now we wait to see what happens. As of right now, it is unclear if, when, or how the companies that are bound by this law will abide by it.