The very conservative U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled that a Texas law that allows for users to sue large social media platforms for removing social media posts dealing with politics, the New York Times reports.
This decision directly contradicts an earlier ruling by a federal court in Florida that blocked a similar law, with the court determining that social media companies have a First Amendment right to moderate what is on their sites.
“Today we reject the idea that corporations have a freewheeling First Amendment right to censor what people say,” Judge Andrew S. Oldham, a Trump appointee, wrote in the majority decision on the three-judge panel. The ruling could open the way for people who were banned from certain social media platforms to sue, claiming they were blocked for political views when, in fact, they were banned for being insufferable assholes.