According to CNN business report, two prominent lobbying groups representing the largest companies in the technology industry asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene and block a law in Texas that allows residents of the state to sue the so-called censorship system of large social media platforms** The federal court of appeal allowed the law to take effect on Wednesday local time.
CCIA and netchoice said on Friday that they had filed an emergency suspension application with Supreme Court judge Samuel Alito to prevent the entry into force of Texas's hb20 law. Alito may take a unilateral decision on the request or refer it to all judges of the Supreme Court.
The Texas law, which was blocked last year but reinstated by the Fifth Circuit Court of appeals on Wednesday, makes it illegal for any social media platform with 50 million or more U.S. users per month to "block, prohibit, remove, cancel the platform, castrate, restrict, deny equal access or visibility, or otherwise discriminate against expression". Therefore, it also brings great uncertainty to the operation of social media companies such as Facebook, twitter and Youtube in the state.
"The Texas hb20 act deprives private Internet companies of freedom of speech, prohibits them from making constitutionally protected editorial decisions, and forces them to publish and promote objectionable content," Chris Marchese, a lawyer for netchoice, said in a statement shared with CNN business. "We hope that the Supreme Court can overturn (the decision of the court of appeal) quickly, and we still believe that this law will eventually be overturned as unconstitutional."
Netchoice and CCIA represent the largest companies in the technology industry. Google, Facebook, twitter and tiktok are all members of them.
This week's ruling, and the expected counterattack from the technology lobby, may lay the foundation for the Supreme Court's showdown on First Amendment rights and may dramatically reinterpret these rights, which affects not only the technology industry, but also all Americans - as well as decades of established precedents.