But two big tech trade groups said it was an attempt to censor the content of private social media sites. The state could no more dictate the content of Twitter than it could tell newspapers what they can publish, their lawyers told the Supreme Court.
The tech companies said the law would compel platforms to disseminate Russian and ISIS propaganda, neo-Nazi or KKK screeds, or posts encouraging children to engage in such risky behavior as eating detergent pods.
The websites could not comply with the law “without irreversibly transforming their worldwide online platforms to disseminate harmful, offensive, extremist, and disturbing content,” they said, because the regulation would prohibit companies from enforcing their hate-speech policies.
Two trade groups, NetChoice and the Computer and Communications Industry Association, filed a lawsuit to challenge the Texas law. A federal district court judge issued an injunction blocking its enforcement, but that order was lifted by the U.S. Court of the Appeals for the 5th Circuit