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Jonathan Linowes

Tech Alert: A Big Win for Free Speech!

Jonathan Linowes

“Today we reject the idea that corporations have a freewheeling First Amendment right to censor what people say,” says the US Federal Court as it upholds Texas law.

On Friday, September 16, the US 5th Circuit Court of Appeals released a decision that goes right to the heart of big tech censorship. The court upholds the Texas statute (House Bill 20) that “generally prohibits large social media platforms from censoring speech based on the viewpoint of the speaker”.

In their appeal, the big tech platforms (represented by industry trade organizations) claim the statute is unconstitutional because – now get this – the First Amendment free speech rights for individuals also implies that big corporations are likewise entitled to “a corporation’s unenumerated right to muzzle speech”. In its decision to reject this argument, the court states,

The implications of the platforms’ argument are staggering. On the platforms’ view, email providers, mobile phone companies, and banks could cancel the accounts of anyone who sends an email, makes a phone call, or spends money in support of a disfavored political party, candidate, or business.

The court’s decision continues,

What’s worse, the platforms argue that a business can acquire a dominant market position by holding itself out as open to everyone—as Twitter did in championing itself as “the free speech wing of the free speech party.” … Then, having cemented itself as the monopolist of “the modern public square,” … Twitter unapologetically argues that it could turn around and ban all … speech for no other reason than its employees want to pick on members of that community.

The Texas statute allows users to sue big tech platforms if they have been censored. In the statute, the term “Censor” is defined as “to block, ban, remove, deplatform, demonetize, de-boost, restrict, deny equal access or visibility to, or otherwise discriminate against expression.” Note that the statute does allow censorship where “specifically authorized to censor by federal law” such as preventing the sexual exploitation of children, threats of violence, and other unlawful expression. The statute also requires platforms must disclose how they moderate content, publish an “acceptable use policy”, and maintain a “complaint-and-appeal” system.

We’ll have to see where this goes from here. But at the moment, Big Tech is on notice and on the defensive. The full text of the Court’s decision can be found here: https://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/21/21-51178-CV1.pdf

The Schumer-Manchin Bill will Unleash Environmental and Economic Destruction

The Schumer-Manchin bill that dropped last week ironically dubbed the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 will do nothing to reduce inflation but will unleash the largest industrialization of U.S. open lands not seen since the damming of our western rivers, according to Lisa Linowes, energy policy expert and Executive Director of the Wind Action Group.

In her detailed analysis of the Schumer-Manchin Bill, Ms. Linowes cites reports that the legislation’s impact on inflation “will be statistically indistinguishable from zero through 2031” yet can disproportionally increase taxes on low- and moderate-income taxpayers. And its provisions will raise energy costs that will have a ripple effect through the entire economy.

On the spending side, the bill offers a huge windfall for wind and solar industrialization projects, erasing the 2016 phase-out of the wind production tax credit (PTC), increasing solar’s investment tax credit (ITC), and making the tax credits permanent. It introduces a new “Clean Electricity” program that purports to be “tech neutral” but in fact is covertly designed to benefit wind and solar industries alone. Whether or not these energy sources can stand up on their own market merits without subsidies, the real benefactors are fat-cat Wall Street investors and mega corporations looking for tax deductions to offset, in part, the Schumer-Manchin tax increases.

Ms. Linowes goes on to say, “For those less concerned with cost and more concerned with saving the planet, think again,” the legislation will lead to the industrialization of our lands that will spread across 30 million acres (50,000 sq. mi.), a land mass equal to the States of Maryland, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Delaware combined! This is not being unduly alarmist, she gives the numbers that reflect the facts of the bill. “Schumer-Manchin will make it impossible to stop,” she explains.

The Senate must reject Schumer-Manchin lest we “irreparably damage our open spaces, precious wildlife, and teetering economy with repercussions on the U.S. that will last for generations.”

READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE

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