The news: Last week, Texas and Brazil both passed laws limiting social media companies’ ability to enforce their content moderation rules.
What it means for Texas: Gov. Greg Abbott made clear what the law is about as he signed it on Thursday: “It is now a law that conservative viewpoints in Texas cannot be banned on social media.”
- Officially, however, Texas’ bill prevents social platforms from censoring posts due to “political viewpoints.” That’s a broad swath of content, encompassing topics like COVID-19 misinformation and Holocaust denial. (Two separate amendments to explicitly allow companies to take down those posts failed to pass.)
- Florida attempted to pass a similar law in May, but it was almost immediately struck down in federal court as a violation of platforms’ First Amendment rights.
- It’s likely the same will happen in Texas.
What it means for Brazil: Meanwhile, Brazil’s law would not outright ban companies from taking down posts, but in practice, the effect is the same. It will force companies to receive court orders to take down posts outside of a slim segment of pre-approved reasons, such as nudity, violence, or copyright violations.
- According to eMarketer senior analyst at Insider Intelligence Matteo Ceurvels, “This ban poses a significant threat to the battle against fake news on the internet and is in direct opposition to the more than 8 in 10 internet users in Brazil who are concerned about it.”
- Though the country’s Supreme Court can still strike it...
Read Full Story: https://www.emarketer.com/content/texas-brazil-new-laws-would-make-combating-social-media-misinformation-illegal
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