Conservative lawyers say the Texas legislation, and others like it, could backfire and result in less conservative speech and a number of onerous lawsuits.
“While this bill claims to be supporting free speech, it really violates the First Amendment and ties online business down with red tape that forces all kinds of websites to host the worst content the internet has to offer, such as obscene, antisemitic, and hateful posts,” said Carl Szabo, vice president at NetChoice, a tech trade group that supported the lawsuit blocking the Florida law. “By ignoring the First Amendment, the Texas Legislature has chosen to abandon its own conservative and constitutional values in order to put the government in control of speech online.”