#295: Can Social Media Be Regulated Like Common Carriage?

Tech Policy Podcast

TechFreedom

Technology

4.8 • 45 Ratings

🗓️ 7 July 2021

⏱️ 79 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Are social media websites more like newspapers (with strong free speech rights) or common carriers (with weaker free speech rights)? Enjoining enforcement of Florida’s Internet speech law, SB 7072, a federal judge recently wrote that they’re somewhere “in the middle.” Eugene Volokh, of UCLA School of Law, and Berin Szóka, president of TechFreedom, join the show to debate whether that’s right. For more on Eugene’s position (i.e., some aspects of social media can properly be analogized to common carriage), see Eugene’s recent post, “Social Media Platforms as Common Carriers?,” at The Volokh Conspiracy. For more on Berin’s position (i.e., social media is nothing like common carriage), check out the amicus brief TechFreedom submitted in the Florida litigation.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Tech Policy Podcast. I'm Corvin Barthold.
0:12.0	What is common carriage? How does it interact with the First Amendment? Is it something the
0:18.4	government can use to force social media websites to host speech they'd rather not host?
0:24.4	Today I'll be discussing those questions and somewhat moderating a debate about them with two distinguished guests.
0:32.8	Eugene Volick is the Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor at UCLA School of Law. He teaches on the
0:39.8	First Amendment, among many other topics, and runs the school's First Amendment amicus brief
0:44.8	clinic. He's the founder and namesake of the prominent legal blog, The Volok Conspiracy,
0:50.7	which has been going strong since 2002.
1:00.3	Baron Soka, of course, is the founder and president of Tech Freedom, as well as a frequent guest and occasional host of this podcast. I should note that I'm not exactly neutral here.
1:07.9	On behalf of Tech Freedom, Baron and I submitted an amicus brief in federal district court,
1:13.7	arguing that Florida's social media speech regulation, SB 7072, cannot properly be viewed as common
1:21.5	carriage. That said, Professor Volick is a brilliant guy, and I really like to bait Barron,
1:27.3	so this should be
1:28.0	interesting. Barron and Eugene have discussed these issues at a couple other events, but we have a
1:35.1	new wrinkle for this one. A couple days before this recording, U.S. District Judge Robert
1:41.4	Hinkle enjoying the state of Florida from enforcing that law I just mentioned.
1:46.6	Among other things, SB 7072 says that major social media websites may not de-platform political
1:53.3	candidates, that they must allow users to opt out of post-prioritization on news feeds,
2:00.1	and that they must apply their content moderation
2:02.6	rules in a, quote, consistent manner. The judge noted that the law, quote, compels social
2:09.3	media providers to host speech that violates their standards, speech they otherwise would not
2:15.2	host, and forbids providers from speaking as they otherwise would.
	...

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