Judging Freedom - Supreme Court blocks Texas' controversial social media law

Episode Date: June 1, 2022

Supreme Court blocks Texas' controversial social media law #supremecourtSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Wednesday, June 1st, 2022. It's about 1120 in the morning here on the East Coast of the United States. Last night, the Supreme Court came down with a ruling that didn't make the front pages, but it's very, very interesting to all of us, particularly those of us who work in social media. It involves the state of Texas, not guns and not abortion, but free speech. So the state of Texas enacted a statute that said if any social media entity has more than 50 million followers, subscribers, whatever you want to call them, then that entity cannot in Texas restrain anybody from expressing an opinion. Stated differently, Facebook, which has a billion

users, somehow if this law were going to be followed in Texas, couldn't ban Donald Trump or couldn't ban somebody who posted something that was violent or harmful or, in the opinion of Facebook, was a political view that they dislike. This was basically the government interfering with free speech. So the case made its way through the courts. The trial court invalidated it. The appeals court reinstated it. And then there's an appeal to the Supreme Court. While the case is pending in the Supreme Court, and before the briefs have been filed and the oral argument has been held, the briefs won't be filed and the oral argument has been held. The briefs won't be filed, and the oral argument won't be held until this fall in October. The media companies make an emergent application to restrain the enforcement of it.

I don't know how, if you're Facebook, you can obey a law interfering with free speech in just one of the 50 states. Of course, it turns out that other states are waiting to see what happens here because they want to jump on the bandwagon, either because they hate Facebook or they hate the politics of Facebook, whatever the case may be. But they may not have to wait because last night the Supreme Court, by a vote of five to four, restrained Texas from enforcing this law until the Supreme Court can rule on it. Now, it didn't give a reason for it, but we can guess that the reason is interference with free speech. The state of Texas, even though the First Amendment prohibits Congress from infringing upon

free speech, the 14th Amendment has been applied, has been interpreted to apply the First Amendment to the states. So even though it says Congress shall make no law infringing upon the freedom of speech, it really means no government shall make any law infringing upon the freedom of speech, it really means no government shall make any law infringing upon the freedom of speech. And if the state of Texas is going to tell Facebook what it cannot remove from its bulletin board, it is infringing upon Facebook's freedom of speech. I'm not saying this because I agree with the decisions Facebook has made. Of course not. I've been disciplined by Facebook and by TikTok myself. I disagree with their discipline, but will defend to the death their right to do it because it's their free speech.

That's basically what the Supreme Court said last night. It's not a final ruling on the case, it's the preliminary ruling. So all those other state legislatures out there that are thinking of following suit, my advice is you wait and see the final outcome of this case because you're probably going to lose. This five to four preliminary ruling on the preliminary injunction will probably be the final ruling invalidating a statute that interferes with the media's freedom of speech. And so it should be. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom.