Supreme Court agrees to hear a case that could determine whether Facebook, Twitter and other social

[Polybius]

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case that could determine whether users can challenge social media companies on free speech grounds.

The case, Manhattan Community Access Corp. v. Halleck, No. 17-702, centers on whether a private operator of a public access television network is considered a state actor, which can be sued for First Amendment violations.

The case could have broader implications for social media and other media outlets. In particular, a broad ruling from the high court could open the country's largest technology companies up to First Amendment lawsuits.

That could shape the ability of companies like Facebook, Twitter and Alphabet's Google to control the content on their platforms as lawmakers clamor for more regulation and activists on the left and right spar over issues related to censorship and harassment.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/16/supreme-court-case-could-decide-fb-twitter-power-to-regulate-speech.html?view=story&trk=mostpopular%3A%3A4%3A102527204

Note: How does everyone think this case will and should go?

[50 Shades Of Blue]

1. That is scary as shit.

[Polybius]

5. Yes indeed

Especially with drunky on the Court.

[Takket]

2. The answer is clearly no but the right wing SCOTUS will go yes

This will allow them to sculpt social media into right wing Fox News like sites to serve as propaganda diseminaters for the GOP

[lark]

3. Bad times.

With Kav, Gorsuch, Alito, Thomas and 99% of the time Roberts totally onboard with turning the US into an oligarchy dictatorship, we can only expect bad and worse to come out of any SCOTUS case. They are part of trumpworld and the enemy of the American people.

[Princess Turandot]

4. There's a major difference between this situation and that of social media companies...

This case concerns public access channels on cable tv.

The question here is whether these private channel operators (the cable companies) are state actors (subject to the 1st Amendment) where/because they are required to provide these public access stations by state and municipal government authorities as a condition of being granted a license. The 2nd Circuit concluded that they were:

...where, as here, federal law authorizes setting aside channels for public access to be ‘the electronic marketplace of ideas,’ state regulation requires cable operators to provide at least one public access channel, a municipal contract requires a cable operator to provide four such channels, and a municipal official has designated a private corporation to run those channels, those channels are public forums...

https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/17/17-1702/50885/20180621153350007_Petition%20and%20Appendix.pdf

Meanwhile, two other circuits recently reached the conclusion that they were not state actors, following an existing test previously established by SCOTUS. The 2nd Circuit decided to mostly ignore the existing tests.

AFAIK, Social media companies have no such relationships with government, which is the basis for this suit. It's hard to see how this could apply.

[X_Digger]

6. Shh, the clickbait headline doesn't have to match reality.. ;) n/t