Supreme Court Urged to Protect Free Speech on Social Media

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Rutherford Institute is calling on the U.S. Supreme Court to protect free speech forums on social media from attempts by big tech companies to block, ban, remove, deplatform, demonetize, de-boost, restrict, deny equal access or visibility to, or otherwise discriminate against viewpoints of which they might disapprove.

In an amicus brief filed in NetChoice v. Paxton and Moody v. NetChoice, Rutherford Institute attorneys argue that laws should be allowed to treat social media platforms as free speech forums and secure them from viewpoint-based censorship by big tech companies to promote freedom of speech for all Americans. The joint cases arose in response to laws in Texas and Florida that forbid censorship by Big Tech companies such as Facebook, Google, TikTok and YouTube.

“Technofascism is the modern-day equivalent of book burning, which does away with controversial ideas and the people who espouse them,” said constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute and author of Battlefield America: The War on the American People. “Once you allow government agencies and corporations to determine what viewpoints are ‘legitimate,’ you’re already moving fast down a slippery slope that ends with the censorship of all viewpoints altogether other than that of the government and…