SCOTUS and Big Tech Censorship

By Rich Kozlovich

On September 22, 2022 Trevor Schakohl published this piece,  Florida Asks Supreme Court To Decide If First Amendment Allows Social Media Censorship, saying:

Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody and other state officials asked the U.S. Supreme Court Wednesday to resolve if a state law that would have forced social media companies to allow political candidates on their platforms violates the First Amendment.

My view is this isn't a first amendment issue as these are privately owned companies.....unless they're first declared to be a public service of some sort, which is pretty much what the Texas decision amounted to.  However, there's a danger in all that regarding what can result, but here are what I consider the "red herring" arguments against that ruling.

“Under this ruling, any state in the 5th Circuit could, in theory, mandate that news organizations must cover certain politicians or certain other content,”........ “It could, in theory, allow a state to mandate that any news organization must publish opinion pieces by politicians. It completely flies in the face of the 1st Amendment’s association rights and the right to editorial discretion.”

The ruling says no such thing.  In fact, if these groups want to publish their spiel, they should be allowed to do so.  They can't force anyone to read it, people can read it or choose not to read it, so there is no association restriction involved.  Then we have:

 “If private actors can be treated like state actors and are bound by constitutional principles, then there’s no division anymore between private sector and government sector … the idea of treating internet services as if they’re bound to follow the First Amendment as opposed to protected by the First Amendment completely flips everything we thought we knew about the Constitution.”

Well, private companies are already under that kind of imposition via price and wage controls, forced hiring practices of clearly unqualified employees because of race, religion or sexual preferences.  So that in no way is breaking new legislative or administrative law and/or practice. 

The "legislatures will take over the internet", is scare mongering, and the ruling in no way allows that, although I have no doubt the Democrats will attempt to use this ruling in an attempt to do so, find friendly courts to reinterpret the ruling to satisfy some leftist narrative, but this is absolutely clear to me: At some point these internet giants will start to act responsibly or they will be regulated, and in ways no one may like.  Will they do it? No!  They are thoroughly infested with leftist demagogues who will never act responsibly since being a true leftist means being certifiably nuts.