NetChoice, whose members include some of the biggest of Big Tech -- Amazon, Google, Meta (Facebook) -- is behind a TV ad that sounds and looks more like a Donald Trump attack on his political opponents and the coverage he receives in the media, rather than leading-edge online companies more often allied with the liberals the ad is attacking.

The association has been fighting hard against a bill, the Journalism Competition & Preservation Act (JCPA), which is designed to give creators of original news content, like local broadcasters, more leverage over compensation for their content's re-use online.

"The Washington liberals have a dangerous plan to bail out their allies in the [liberal] media," the TV ad warns ominously.

Also: Big Tech Says JCPA Benefits Big Broadcasters

It says "the left's" new internet regulation would "threaten access to reliable information online and silence conservative voices." That is the knock those conservative voices have on Big Tech, arguing that they are the ones in league with liberals.

The add pictures Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), independent Bernie Sanders of Vermont and President Biden and suggests they are behind the "dangerous plan" but were "too afraid" to push that "radical agenda" before the election, which is why Americans don't trust politicians, it intones.

NetChoice calls on the audience to press Senate conservatives to oppose the bill.

"The JCPA threatens an independent media by providing specific news outlets with government privileges that will likely increase the government’s ability to pressure such outlets on editorial decisions," says NetChoice President Steve DelBianco. ■

Edge providers have asked a U.S. appeals court to block the implementation of a Texas law that regulates how those platforms can moderate their content, a move the computer companies frame as an existential threat to their business models.

That motion of stay filed en banc (full court) with the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was filed by the Computer & Communications Industry Association and NetChoice, whose members include Facebook (Meta), Google, Twitter and Amazon, among many others, after a panel of the same court paved the way for the law’s implementation.

That panel two weeks ago ruled that corporations do not have a “freewheeling First Amendment right to censor what people say,” and thus has paved the way for the Texas law (HB 20), which restricts how social-media giants moderate their content. 

Also: Court Told Texas Law Would Wreck Online Ad Platforms

The law, which passed a Republican-controlled legislature last year, “prohibits an interactive computer service from censoring a user, a user’s expression, or a user's ability to receive the expression of another person based on … the viewpoint of the user or another person.” It also requires large social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter to disclose how they manage content, to publish an acceptable-use policy that users can find telling them what content is acceptable, to publish quarterly transparency reports and to have a complaint system in place.

The Supreme Court had stayed the implementation of the law until a three-judge panel of the 5th Circuit made that decision. Now that the panel has weighed in, though, the law can take effect unless the 5th Circuit agrees to the CCIA/NetChoice stay request.

CCIA and NetChoice said they will appeal the panel decision to the Supreme Court, which they say is likely to hear it because it involves issues of great importance and because different appeals courts have ruled differently on the issue. Resolving such circuit splits is one of the reasons the Supreme Court agrees to hear appeals.

“Granting a stay will prevent irreparable harm to Plaintiffs’ member companies while the Supreme Court reviews the vital constitutional issues raised by legislation such as HB20,” they told the full 5th Circuit. “The majority opinion in this case creates a clear circuit split with the [11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals] and misapplies the Supreme Court’s important First Amendment precedents.”

In a separate case, CCIA and NetChoice point out, the 11th U.S. Circuit ruled that websites have a First Amendment right to decide what speech they publish and their reasons for doing so, or not doing so.

The Supreme Court this week signaled it thinks the issue of online content moderation is one of great importance, agreeing to hear appeals of two decisions relating to the moderation of terrorist-related speech on social media.

Internet advertisers and others filed a friend of the court brief at the Supreme Court in support of NetChoice and the CCIA back when that court was staying the initial decision. Those advertisers and others said the law will irreparably damage online platforms as advertising vehicles.

“Forcing private companies to give equal treatment to all viewpoints on their platforms places foreign propaganda and extremism on equal footing with decent Internet users, and places Americans at risk,” CCIA president Matt Schruers has said of the law. “ ‘God Bless America’ and ‘Death to America’ are both viewpoints, and it is unwise and unconstitutional for the State of Texas to compel a private business to treat those the same.”

In fact, those computer companies have likened the law to the FCC’s Fairness Doctrine, which once imposed an affirmative obligation on broadcasters to present issues of public importance and to seek out opposing viewpoints on those issues. The demise of the doctrine in the 1980s is credited with giving rise to the conservative talk-radio boom. ▪️

The Supreme Court has blocked, for now, a Texas law that computer companies strongly oppose.

Justices Neil Gorsuch, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented, saying they would have voted to allow the law to be enforced while the underlying challenge to the law is being adjudicated in a district court.

The law, which passed a Republican-controlled legislature last year, “prohibits an interactive computer service from censoring a user, a user’s expression, or a user's ability to receive the expression of another person based on … the viewpoint of the user or another person.” It also requires large social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter to disclose how they manage content, to publish an acceptable use policy that users can find telling them what content is acceptable, to publish quarterly transparency reports, and to have a complaint system in place.

NetChoice and the Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA) filed an emergency petition with the High Court to prevent the enforcement of the law, which they say prevents online platforms from exercising editorial discretion over content and irreversibly tarnishing their businesses.

That was after a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in a split 2-1 decision, reversed a lower court opinion and lifted a preliminary injunction against the law.

Computer companies called it a victory for free speech, but pointed out there is more work to be done. "While today’s victory is welcome news, we’re only halfway there  — our case will soon return to the district court, where we’ll proceed to arguments on the merits," NetChoice said in a statement. “And as this case proceeds, we await a ruling from the 11th Circuit in our parallel case against the State of Florida.”

“Texas’s HB 20 is a constitutional trainwreck — or, as the district court put it, an example of ‘burning the house to roast the pig,’ ” said NetChoice counsel Chris Marchese. “We are relieved that the First Amendment, open internet, and the users who rely on it remain protected from Texas’s unconstitutional overreach. Despite Texas’s best efforts to run roughshod over the First Amendment, it came up short in the Supreme Court,” Marchese said. “HB 20 will once again be enjoined and the case will proceed in the lower courts.”

“We are encouraged that this attack on First Amendment rights has been halted until a court can fully evaluate the repercussions of Texas’s ill-conceived statute,” CCIA president Matt Schruers said. “This ruling means that private American companies will have an opportunity to be heard in court before they are forced to disseminate vile, abusive or extremist content under this Texas law. We appreciate the Supreme Court ensuring First Amendment protections, including the right not to be compelled to speak, will be upheld during the legal challenge to Texas’s social media law.” ■

A federal appeals court has agreed to block enforcement of the major provisions of a Florida law targeting social media content moderation. NetChoice and the Computer & Communications Industry Association had sought the preliminary injunction while their legal challenge of the law works its way through the courts.

In a unanimous decision penned by judge Levin Newsom, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit upheld a lower court's injunction against the enforcement of provisions in the law that restrict social media platforms' ability to moderate content and that they have to come up with a "thorough rationale" for all of their content moderation decisions.

The court said both are likely unconstitutional. It declined to block enforcement of the "far less burdensome" requirement of other disclosure provisions, saying the lower court got it wrong when it blocked those as well.

The law was the product of a Republican-controlled legislature. Republicans have argued that Silicon Valley giants have attempted to suppress conservative speech in the guise of moderating their platforms and under the protection of section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which exempts them with civil liability over most of that third-party content.

Asserting that “social media platforms have unfairly censored, shadow-banned, deplatformed and applied post-prioritization algorithms to Floridians,” the law removed civil liability protection for content on Big Tech platforms — like Facebook or Twitter — that violated the law, including allowing for monetary damages up to $250,000 per day for deplatforming political candidates for statewide office, and $25,000 for non-statewide offices.

"The question at the core of this appeal is whether the Facebooks and Twitters of the world — indisputably 'private actors,' with First Amendment rights — are engaged in constitutionally protected expressive activity when they moderate and curate the content that they disseminate on their platforms. The State of Florida insists that they aren’t," Newsom wrote in the panel decision.

By contrast, Newsom said the panel was pretty sure those Big Tech companies were, indeed, private actors engaging in protected speech. ■

Internet advertisers and others have filed a friend of the court brief at the Supreme Court in support of NetChoice and the Computer and Communications Industry Association, which are challenging a Texas social media law they say will irreparably damage online platforms as advertising vehicles.

The brief paints a stark picture. It says the law (HB20) "will result in the wholesale lifting of content moderation. The resulting deluge of hate speech, graphic images and video, and vile content of all forms is not what users want," and will irredeemably harm those platforms' goodwill and reputations.

“Businesses large and small want to know that their advertising and marketing is reaching its intended audience without having their ads placed next to content they deem to be offensive or untrue," said Lartease Tiffith, IAB executive VP for public policy, in explaining why the group was weighing in.

CCIA and NetChoice filed an emergency petition at the Supreme Court to prevent the enforcement of a Texas law they say prevents online platforms from exercising editorial discretion over content and irreversibly tarnishes their businesses.

Also: New Bill Would Break Up Big Tech Ad Giants

The law, which passed a Republican-controlled legislature last year, “prohibits an interactive computer service from censoring a user, a user’s expression, or a user's ability to receive the expression of another person based on … the viewpoint of the user or another person.” It also requires large social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter to disclose how they manage content, to publish an acceptable use policy that users can find telling them what content is acceptable, to publish quarterly transparency reports, and to have a complaint system in place.

Among the groups joining IAB in the brief are the Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council (MMTC), the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation (ITIF), the NAACP, and the Anti-Defamation League. ■

Computer companies are telling a federal appeals court that a Texas court made the right call when it granted their request for a preliminary injunction blocking enforcement of a Texas law they say unconstitutionally prevents online platforms from exercising editorial discretion based on viewpoint.

The Computer & Communications Industry Association and NetChoice, whose members include Google, Facebook and Twitter, filed a brief in the state of Texas' challenge of the injunction.

The brief came in advance of the planned May 9 oral argument in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit on that challenge.

The law, which passed Sept. 9, 2021, “prohibits an interactive computer service from censoring a user, a user’s expression, or a user's ability to receive the expression of another person based on … the viewpoint of the user or another person.” It also requires large social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter to disclose how they manage content, to publish an acceptable use policy that users can find telling them what content is acceptable, to publish quarterly transparency reports, and to have a complaint system in place for violations of its policies.

Because the law prevents them from using their editorial discretion based on viewpoint, the companies told the court, it effectively and constitutionally compels them to "publish, display and even recommend all sorts of speech that they deem objectionable and contrary to policies governing their services -- including pro-Nazi speech, terrorist propaganda, Holocaust denial, and misinformation."

They also say the law requires a host of "burdensome" disclosure mandates including notice each time they remove speech from their platforms.

"Governments have no business dictating what speech must appear online. Digital services are constantly combating foreign disinformation, propaganda, and anti-American extremism," CCIA said. "Turning Texas into an online safe space for these adversaries puts Americans at risk from these evolving online threats." ■

A U.S. District Court in Texas has blocked the Dec. 2 effective date of a state law that prevents “censorship“ by social media platforms based on viewpoint, according to the groups who sought that action.

The law will now not go into effect until the court has heard the underlying legal challenge to the law.

NetChoice and the Computer & Communications Industry Association, which took the state to court over the law, had sought the injunction, arguing that the law would effectively ban content moderation and thus would allow "pro-Nazi speech, medical misinformation, terrorist propaganda, and foreign government disinformation" to be posted on social media sites without recourse by the platforms without facing civil suits.

There is a pretty high bar for granting such injunctions, including the likelihood that NetChoice and CCIA will win the underlying case on the merits, and that allowing the law to go into effect would cause harms not easy to undo.

The law, which passed Sept. 9, “prohibits an interactive computer service from censoring a user, a user’s expression, or a user's ability to receive the expression of another person based on … the viewpoint of the user or another person.” It also requires large social media platforms like Facebook and Google to disclose how they manage content, to publish an acceptable use policy that users can find telling them what content is acceptable, to publish quarterly transparency reports, and to have a complaint system in place for violations of its policies.

The groups filed suit against a similar Florida law, which was ultimately ruled unconstitutional. 

Both the Texas and Florida legislatures are controlled by Republicans, many of whom have alleged that social media have been censoring conservative content and voices, pointing to bans on former President Donald Trump's accounts.

CCIA, whose members include from Amazon to Yahoo!, and NetChoice, whose members include, well, from Amazon to Yahoo!, said the Texas bill would “compel private companies to host everything from Nazi propaganda to anti-American extremism or risk being sued,” adding, ”The First Amendment protects citizens and private companies from being compelled to speak.“

"It exposes those platforms to the exact liability that Congress protected against in enacting Section 230. And it both regulates how the targeted websites disseminate speech to and from users around the globe—regardless of their connection to Texas—and specifically requires the websites to continue doing business in Texas," the groups had told the court back in September.

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act is the federal law that generally provides immunity for third-party content posted to social media sites and other online platforms.

CCIA praised the court decision.

“This ruling upholds the First Amendment and protects internet users, said CCIA president Matt Schruers. "Without this temporary injunction, Texas’s social media law would make the internet a more dangerous place by tying the hands of companies protecting users from abuse, scams, or extremist propaganda. 

“Today’s outcome is not surprising. The First Amendment ensures that the Government can’t force a citizen or company to be associated with a viewpoint they disapprove of, and that applies with particular force when a State law would prevent companies from enforcing policies against Nazi propaganda, hate speech, and disinformation from foreign agents.” ■

Computer companies and edge providers are telling a U.S. Appeals Court that a lower-court judge was right when he blocked implementation of Florida’s content moderation law, concluding it was unconstitutional, and that it should come to the same conclusion.

Also read: Big Tech Sues Florida Over Sec. 230 Law

The Computer and Communications Industry Association and NetChoice teamed up on a brief this week to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which is hearing Florida's challenge to the lower-court judge’s ruling.

They told the appeals court that the law would allow anyone “from a foreign government spreading propaganda to those spreading terrorist content” to sue a platform if it didn’t host their material.

“The District Court properly enjoined Florida’s unprecedented effort to strip online service providers of their constitutionally protected editorial judgment and replace it with the state’s own judgments and preferences,” the brief asserted. “Florida did not conceal the motivation for its novel law: to target certain large online service providers for exercising their editorial judgment in a manner that the state disfavors.”

The law was the product of a Republican-controlled legislature. Republicans have argued that Silicon Valley giants have attempted to suppress conservative speech in the guise of moderating their platforms and under the protection of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which exempts them with civil liability over most of that third-party content.

Asserting that “social media platforms have unfairly censored, shadow-banned, deplatformed and applied post-prioritization algorithms to Floridians,” the law presumes that doing so is not acting in bad faith, which means it is legally actionable. The law removes civil liability protection for content on Big Tech platforms — like Facebook or Twitter — that violates the law, including allowing for monetary damages up to $250,000 per day for deplatforming political candidates for statewide office, and $25,000 for non-statewide offices.

CCIA and NetChoice, whose membership also includes companies like Facebook, Google and Amazon, sued the state, saying that the law would open platforms to suits for content moderation policies designed to protect users’ safety. After the judge agreed to block the law as unconstitutional, Florida challenged that decision in the 11th Circuit.

“Digital services invest in protecting Internet users from dangerous and harmful content and behavior, whether it is extremists glorifying violence against Americans or trolls promoting self-harm, and a federal court has already agreed with us that Florida’s law would thwart those efforts,” CCIA said. “Policymakers shouldn’t guarantee safe spaces online for anti-American extremists, predators, or foreign agents spreading misinformation.”

Big Tech companies are suing the state of Florida over its recently passed law that limits websites' Sec. 230 immunity from civil liability over third party content, saying it is a speech restriction targeted at select online businesses.

The Computer & Communications Industry Association teamed up with NetChoice, whose membership also includes companies like Facebook, Google and Amazon, saying that the law would open platforms to suits for content moderation policies designed to protect users' safety.

CCIA argued that edge providers have a First Amendment right to protect users including by determining "what material is appropriate for their community."

Also Read: Facebook to D.C. on Sec. 230: Regulate Us, Please

The suit, filed in the U.S. district Court for the Northern District of Florida, seeks to enjoin enforcement of the law, which they said is preempted by Sec. 230, exceeds the state's authority under the Commerce Clause, and is otherwise infirm.

“We are bringing this suit to safeguard the industry’s free speech right to deliver on their commitments to users to mitigate harmful content online," said CCIA president Matt Schruers.

The law, which was passed by the Republican majority legislature and signed earlier this week by Republican Governor Ron DeSantis, removes that civil liability protection for Big Tech platforms—like Facebook or Twitter—that violate the law, including allowing for monetary damages up to $250,000 per day for de-platforming political candidates for statewide office, and $25,000 per day for candidates for non-statewide offices.

Also Read: Rep. Cicciline Says Big Tech Power Will Be Curbed

In addition to monetary penalties, the law prevents violators of antitrust law, which the Florida attorney general can pursue under Florida's Unfair and Deceptive Trade Practices Act, from contracting with any public entity, a "blacklist" DeSantis' office said would create "real consequences" for Big Tech "oligopolies."

“We cannot stand idly by as Florida’s lawmakers push unconstitutional bills into law that bring us closer to state-run media and a state-run internet," said Carl Szabo, VP and general counsel of NetChoice.

Netchoice, a trade group whose members include powerhouse edge players Amazon, Google, and Twitter, released a poll Friday concluding that Americans "do not favor breaking up Big Tech if it producers the negative outcomes Big Tech argues it will.

That came only hours after a House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee hearing in which chairman David Cicciline pledged that Congress would curb Big Tech's power because it had gotten too big and powerful, including through antitrust reform.

According to the poll, only 3% of Americans cited antitrust reform as a top issue for Congress to address in 2021, said the group, while 59% said they were concerned about the potential consequences of breaking up big tech companies after "exposure to information about the potential negative outcomes of doing so."

“While pundits continuously push antitrust as a proposal to address their own political grievances, the majority of the American people clearly believe breaking up tech will negatively impact their choices online and the services that support their lives every single day,” said Netchoice president Steve DelBianco. “Americans aren’t interested in the dismantling of a world-leading industry if it means they would have to pay for services, watch small online companies disappear, or lose out on the latest technology.“

The study found that the respondents prioritized antitrust reform below COVID-19, immigration and national security on Congress' to do list.

And as to the opposition to breaking up Big Tech, that was if that breakup had "unintended negative effect on consumers and the services provided by big tech." The survey proposed a parade of, not exactly horrible, but consumer-unfriendly outcomes from possible divestitures.

Specifically, that meant that 1) 60% of Americans opposed breaking up Amazon if it meant that put an end to two-day delivery; 59% opposed Google divesting YouTube if it meant they had to pay for YouTube; 52% of conservatives and 48% of liberals opposed breaking up Facebook if it meant "if it meant a foreign tech company were to take a sizable share of the markets Facebook operates in"; and 57% opposed breaking up Apple if it meant iPhones could be more easily hacked.

The online poll was conducted Jan. 29-Feb. 1, 2021 among 2,201 U.S. adults. It has a margin of error of plus or minus two percentage points.

Tech lobby NetChoice, whose members include Google, Twitter, Facebook and Yahoo!, are slamming President Trump for his tweeted threats against social media. 

The President threatened "big action" against Twitter following its fact check tagging of his tweets about mail-in ballots, and the White House signaled that would be coming in an executive order related to social media. 

Related: Trump Threatens to Shut Down Social Media 

In a statement early Thursday (May 28), NetChoice president Steve DelBianco had some choice words for that other President, who he said "is trampling" on the First Amendment" by threatening the fundamental speech rights of social media. 

"Conservatives should be very afraid of future administrations following President Trump’s example to bully social media platforms into suppressing political speech," he said. “By harassing America’s tech industry, the Administration emboldens foreign governments to control online expression,” he said. "Conservatives have truly lost their way if they believe that the government should dictate the terms of online political speech.” 

Republican FCC commissioner Brendan Carr. backing up the President, suggested on Fox News Wednesday that Twitter was trying to have it both ways, publishing its own political speech by tagging the President's tweets while still claiming it should be exempt from  for its treatment of that third-party speech because it was not a publisher but a neutral platform. 

Google also took fire from the President and Capitol Hill Wednesday for, it said mistakenly, deleting Chinese language phrases insulting to the Chinese Communist Party.