Enlarge / Supreme Courtroom Justice Clarence Thomas speaks on the Heritage Basis on October 21, 2021, in Washington, DC. (credit score: Getty Photos | Drew Angerer )
With tech teams asking the US Supreme Courtroom to dam the brand new Texas legislation towards social media “censorship,” the state’s protection depends partly on an opinion issued final 12 months by Justice Clarence Thomas in a case involving Donald Trump and Twitter.
Thomas’ opinion, as we wrote on the time, criticized the Part 230 authorized protections given to on-line platforms’ moderation choices and argued that free-speech legislation should not essentially stop lawmakers from regulating these platforms as widespread carriers.
“In some ways, digital platforms that maintain themselves out to the general public resemble conventional widespread carriers,” Thomas wrote. “Although digital as a substitute of bodily, they’re at backside communications networks, and so they ‘carry’ data from one consumer to a different. A conventional phone firm laid bodily wires to create a community connecting individuals. Digital platforms lay data infrastructure that may be managed in a lot the identical means.” The similarity between on-line platforms and customary carriers “is even clearer for digital platforms which have dominant market share,” Thomas additionally wrote.
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