And while most people are on apps like Romeo for decidedly less involved connections, the seemingly unlikely home for a refugee aid group actually makes perfect sense, given that such clandestine apps are often the only modicum of queer community that exists in more conservative countries. So far, plenty of users have proved willing to help, hailing from locales as wide-ranging as Athens and Amsterdam. While the Texas law remains on hold, the challenges to its constitutionality will continue before a federal judge in Austin, Texas.Here are organizations to support and simple ways to help during the ongoing refugee crisis. As such, they must be truly open to all and may not “assert a 1st Amendment right to refuse service to their customers based on the viewpoints those customers profess,” they said. In defense of the law, Texas attorneys said social media platforms that are open to the public are the 21st century equivalent of the “traditional common carrier,” such as telephone lines. They said platforms would be forced “to disseminate all sorts of objectionable viewpoints - such as Russia’s propaganda claiming that its invasion of Ukraine is justified, ISIS propaganda claiming that extremism is warranted, neo-Nazi or KKK screeds denying or supporting the Holocaust, and encouraging children to engage in risky or unhealthy behavior like eating disorders.” They said the Texas law, if upheld, would deny social media platforms the right to remove offensive posts and instead make them “havens for the vilest expression imaginable.” NetChoice and the Computer and Communications Industry Assn. Violators could be subject to daily penalties. The targets of the law appear to include YouTube, Instagram and TikTok as well as Facebook and Twitter. or otherwise discriminate against expression” of users based on their viewpoint. The Texas law says a social media platform with more than 50 million users in the United States “may not censor. In defense of the law, Texas said it had the authority to regulate privately run social media platforms to protect the speech of conservatives from being excluded or discriminated against. We are relieved that the 1st Amendment, open internet and the users who rely on it remain protected from Texas’s unconstitutional overreach.” Lawyers for the tech lobbying group NetChoice called the court’s intervention “welcome news.” Chris Marchese, counsel for the group, called the Texas law “a constitutional trainwreck. As usually understood, the 1st Amendment’s guarantee of “freedom of speech” prohibits the government from regulating speech or censoring the publishing of views and opinions. They argued the Texas law is unconstitutional because it gets the 1st Amendment backward. They sought an order to put the law on hold while the legal challenges proceeded in the lower courts.
Lawyers for the social media platforms appealed directly to the Supreme Court. The Texas law had been blocked as well by a federal district judge, but on May 11, the 5th Circuit Court in a 2-1 decision and with no explanation ruled the law may take effect. Paxton posed an early Supreme Court test of whether conservative states may regulate what appears on social media platforms. Kagan did not join the dissent and did not explain her views. Texas should not be required to seek preclearance from the federal courts before its laws go into effect.” Thomas and Gorsuch joined his dissent. He said the court’s decision to block the law for now represented a “significant intrusion on state sovereignty.
addresses the power of dominant social media corporations to shape public discussion of the important issues of the day.” Speaking for the conservatives, Alito said the court should have stood aside for now. Gorsuch dissented liberal Justice Elena Kagan said she would have also denied the stay. The Supreme Court on Tuesday put on hold a Texas law that targets “Big Tech” and authorizes the state to sue Facebook, Twitter and other popular social media websites if they censor or discriminate against conservatives.Īcting on an emergency appeal from a coalition of tech trade groups, the justices issued an order to stop enforcement of the law.Ĭonservative Justices Samuel A.