AUSTIN, Texas (Legal Newsline) - NetChoice and the Computer and Communication Industry Association filed a federal complaint on September 22 in the Western District of Texas over House Bill 20.
The plaintiffs are two trade associations whose members have the First Amendment rights to engage in their own speech and to exercise editorial discretion over the speech published on their websites and applications, the suit says.
Plaintiffs alleges that Texas House Bill 20, enacted on Sept. 9, 2021, prohibits a targeted list of disfavored “social media platforms” from exercising editorial discretion over content those platforms disseminate on their own privately owned websites and applications.
Plaintiffs allege that at the bottom of H.B. 20, it prohibits the platforms from engaging in their own expression to label or comment on the expression they are now compelled to disseminate. And in light of the statute’s vague operating provisions, every single editorial and operational choice that platforms make could subject those companies to lawsuits, the suit says.
Plaintiffs allege H.B. 20 further requires “social media platforms” to publish how they intend to exercise their discretion and document in excruciating detail how they exercise their editorial discretion over potentially billions of pieces of content.
Plaintiffs are represented by Scott A. Keller, Matthew H. Frederick and Todd Disher of Lehotsky Keller LLP.
U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas Austin Division case number 1:21-cv-00840-RP