438: I Hosted 157 Episodes and All I Got Was This Stupid Digital Censorship

Yeah, so much news, most of it pretty bad.

We'll start with social media.

Let's just sort of give our thoughts on where things are and where they're going.

I, of course, have been thinking about this a lot lately.

Netchoice has 25,642 active lawsuits and counting.

I should at least pretend- At least 12,000 of them against Rob Bonta.

Yes, yes.

I should at least pretend I have a bunch of proprietary information I'm bringing to them that is my value add that I can't really discuss on the show.

But there are some things that are pretty obvious.

NetChoice has run the table in the district courts, gotten a lot of very good rulings against state online age verification and parental consent and quote unquote addiction and quote unquote design laws.

A bunch of these have now gone up on appeal.

If you listen to the oral arguments in these appeals, as I have, It doesn't take a rocket scientist to say that we're gonna get some rulings that probably go the other way.

It's probably gonna be a mixed bag.

We're probably gonna have a circuit split before long.

NetChoice is going to be back at the Supreme Court for the sequel to NetChoice versus Moody.

That case, as all listeners know, confirmed the editorial right of platforms to moderate speech on social media as they see fit.

Part two most likely is going to be some variation on the question of does Free Speech Coalition versus Paxton, which is lenient about age gating for adult content online, extend to social media, and that's gonna be the dispute.

And it's gonna be all about the people on our side making clear that the Brown and Packingham and Reno Supreme Court decisions are the governing precedents that apply the First Amendment with full force on the Internet and that Paxton is this weird, narrow exception.

I've been spending a lot of time lately thinking about how you count to five votes on the court with this.

I think it's very doable.

I think, for instance, Chief Justice Roberts hopefully will be very open to this straightforward argument that all you're doing is making an incremental decision of saying that Paxton goes this far and no further.

It is an exception to the general rule.

But there's a lot of moving pieces here.

The Fifth Circuit just recently, it was per curiam, this decision, but Oldham was on the panel.

And it does read very much like Judge Oldham wrote it.