Texas governor signs bill prohibiting social media giants from blocking users based on viewpoint

Private property is private property. It might belong to a corporation or to a private person like you, but the government has no business in making such property available to everyone. It is a call that should be made by the property owner.

 

Your idea of what constitutes "economic powerhouses" is a bit odd. You seem to think that folks taht simply push around piles of money constitute a pwerhouse. What does New York City actually MAKE? Food? (not much)... Airplanes? (None that I know of)... Railroad cars? (Nope)... Steel? (not lately)... Chemicals? (uhmm... no...my little town in Texas processes more chemicals than New York City does)... Automobiles? (Never saw an auto plant in NYC although there was one, now closed, up on the river near Tarrytown once)..

NYC simply pushes paper from one pile to another. CPA's THRIVE... Accounting firms abound)... stock folks are everywhere... But nobody actually MAKES anything... which is the common factor most folks attribute to an "economic powerhouse"

 

If state governments can regulate the speech of corporations, could they also place limits on how much money they can give to PACs?

 

Freedom of speech is for everyone... at least it used to be until saying anything positive about Trump got you silenced.

 

Preventing social media from censoring whoever they want, would violate their first amendment rights.

If you had a billboard in your yard, people couldn't just come up and write whatever they wanted on it.

 

Printed media is subject to being sued for unjustified censorship. Social media was granted a special exemption by the Democrat Congress.

 

It was passed with overwhelming bipartisan support in 1996.

 

In 1996 few thought it would be used as a Democrat tool to silence conservatives.

 

Maybe.

My point is that if "corporations are people" then they have the right to free speech protected by the first amendment, then the government can't tell them who to censor.

If the government can tell them who they can censor, then they aren't people and have no first amendment protections and should not be allowed to donate money to PACs.

 

No person or entity can stifle the free speech of another simply because they have a positive attitude about a political figure that certain uninformed elements hate.

 

The only entity the first amendment protects your right to free speech from is the government. The courts have ruled that corporations have the same first amendment protections as any of us do.

So if the government tells a corporation who they can and can't censor, it would mean that the government can do the same thing to you or any other individual.

 

By passing legislation protecting social media, but not printed media, the government is playing favorites and guaranteeing rights to one but not the other. That does not pass the Constitutional stink test.

 

The government can't regulate the speech of a corporation, not since in Citizens United the SCOTUS stated that corporations have the same first amendment protections as you or I.

So any regulation of who social media can censor is not going to be constitutional as long as the Citizens United ruling by the SCOTUS is in place.

 

The government cannot regulate the speech of a corporation. Abbott is not regulating their speech. They are not making public statements that are regulated. It is the corporations that are regulating the speech of citizens, by censoring them. Abbott's defense of free speech of citizens is no more "regulating coprporations" than forbidding corporations from committing murder or theft.

 

Telling a corporation that they cannot censor people is by any definition "regulating corporations".

 

Preventing censorship is not "dictating"

 

Only in the sense that the government is telling hem they cannot violate the rights of citizens. Much like telling them they cannot murder or steal.

 

How is it not?

 

A corporation cannot violate the first amendment. it is not possible. A corporation cannot infringe on an individuals first amendment rights, it is not possible, because the first amendment does not protect your rights from a corporation.

 

Only in the sense that the government is telling hem they cannot violate the rights of citizens. Much like telling them they cannot murder or steal.

 

Ok fine. The civil rights act of 1964 prevented separate but equal and discrimination in private open to the public buildings.

Was this also intrusive to the owners rights? Should it not have passed?

 

Once the government gives special exemptions to social media, it becomes an agency of the government and subject to the same Constitutional restrictions.

 

Because nothing is censored.

What the left is doing here is arguing IN FAVOR of censorship, allowing private enterprise to be discriminatory, and then trying, albeit poorly, to convey that anti censorship laws are censoring.

Yeah.. no.

 

Nope.

 

I'm actually not in favor of facebook being able to censor people.

I am in favor of corporations not having the same rights as individual people. Across the board. But as of today, corporations are just as protected by the first amendment as you or I.