Washington – The Computer & Communications Industry Association and its co-plaintiff NetChoice have filed an amended complaint today in their case challenging Texas HB20, a law intended to regulate the speech of social media websites. They now seek a permanent injunction of this law on the grounds that it violates several tenets of federal law, including the Due Process Clause and First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
In mid-2024 the Supreme Court sent this legal challenge back to the lower court in Texas with an instruction to further analyze the scope of the challenge, emphasizing that social media websites’ “editorial judgments influencing the content” are protected speech, as CCIA and NetChoice had argued. “Texas may not interfere with those judgments simply because it would prefer a different mix of messages,” the Court stated.
The amended complaint points out that the must-carry provisions in HB20, and the notice-complaint-appeal obligations that attach when a website takes down content, essentially force private businesses to speak in the manner Texas prefers, which is a clear violation of the First Amendment.
CCIA has advocated for free speech online for more than 25 years.
The following can be attributed to CCIA Senior Vice President and Chief of Staff Stephanie Joyce:
“Operators of digital services have the First Amendment right to decide what content to display. These editorial choices are protected expression; no state can compel a private company to speak in a particular manner.
“Texas’s must-carry social media statute violates federal law in myriad ways. We look forward to a judgment in this case that strikes this unconstitutional abridgment of speech and reiterates the primacy of the First Amendment in the online ecosystem.”
