SCOTUS and Social Media

Brett Kavanaugh: champion of free speech. Really? Well, he seems to be on the right side this time, and in a perilous time one takes one's help where one can find it.

On August 14, the US Supreme Court rejected an emergency bid from a social media sponsors' industry group, NetChoice. NetChoice had sought a block to enforcement by the state of Mississippi of an age certification law.

So by refusing to hear the matter on an emergency basis, SCOTUS has allowed enforcement to proceed for now. But it has not yet addressed the substantive issue.

The law in question says that social media sites must verify the ages of their users and make efforts to protect young people from being exposed to harmful material. Non-compliance brings civil penalties of up to $10,000 per violation, as well as the possibility of criminal prosecution.

This case seems to me to belong to an enormous set -- the set of all cases in which "think of the children!" is pretext. The real goal is precisely to shut down social media altogether if possible, including of course the exchanges of ideas it promotes among adults, or to allow only a quite truncated (harmless) medium to survive. But it is advantageous to say instead "think of the CHILDREN!!!" and so that is said.

At any rate, Brett Kavanaugh (a Trump appointee and a member in good standing of the dominant bloc-of-six), offered his concurrence to the decision to reject this bid. His concurrence makes the point that the decision is only procedural and holds out hope that when it is time for the substance to be decided Kavanaugh will vote in favor of freedom.

Here's the link:

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/25a97_5h25.pdf

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