The 14 minute video posted below presents the most cognitive biology and social behavior-attuned legal reasoning I am aware of in response to the poison that social media routinely promotes and spreads for profit. The legal argument is presented in the legal framework of products liability law (defective products liability). That is one of the few legal avenues available to try to attack toxic social media.
This may be the first time a products liability attack has been tried. But the underlying rationale is science-based. The trial court speaks of minds and radicalization. Those are things not usually discussed in commerce and politics for damned good reasons in the eyes of the rich, powerful or ideologically radicalized. Social media hate speech and lies is the product that is defective when it radicalizes and weaponized minds and that leads poisoned minds to kill or injure others.
Key things to pay attention to in this video:
- Legal reasoning: Hate and radicalizing speech are a product on social media platforms. That product is promoted to increase profit. The profit motive allows one to connect the product with defective products liability law, thereby avoiding a free speech defense by social media owners. The radicalizing content here is argued to be beyond protected free speech.
- Section 230 of the Communications Act has two key provisions. One is a shield that protects social media companies from liability for the content on the platform that social media users post. The other provision, and this one is widely ignored by social media and the MSM, social media is shielded by a Good Samaritan clause that shields it from liability for removing content that social media platform controllers deem to be objectionable. In other words, social media controllers are not obligated to take down hate or radicalizing speech (or any other kind of speech), but if they do they are protected from liability.
Will this hold up on appeal? It just might!!
The social media companies in this lawsuit tried but failed to get this case moved to federal court. That might be the basis on which this decision hold up on appeal. If the case is based on state law, the USSC might not have jurisdiction to hear an appeal. The video says that this case is trapped in New York state courts and it cannot be appealed to the USSC due to federalism and jurisdiction limits.
Perplexity comments on this key point: The US Supreme Court generally does not have jurisdiction to review a state court decision that rests on an adequate, independent state ground, even if the state court incorrectly decided a federal question. This limitation is due to federalism principles and the jurisdictional requirements of Article III of the US Constitution, which mandate an actual "case or controversy" for federal courts to intervene. Therefore, when a state court's judgment is based on a nonfederal ground that is sufficient to support the decision, the US Supreme Court will not review it.
But, if this can be appealed to the USSC. My estimate is that there is about a 96% chance the decision will be reversed on appeal by at least a 5-4 majority. If nothing else, the six TTKP (Trump Tyranny & Kleptocracy Party)-dominated USSC will not tolerate legal reasoning that threatens social conscience-free capitalism. Those judges are plutocrats. Plutocrats hate all business regulations and any whiff of social conscience that gets in the way of profit. I am unsure of how the three Dem judges on the USSC would decide if this case ever gets into the USSC for a decision.
In my opinion, the trial court judge here got it exactly right. But plutocratic, brass knuckles capitalist TTKP USSC judges will try hard to concoct a way take the case and protect huge social media corporations. If the radical USSC authoritarians can’t weasel their way into asserting jurisdiction, this state court decision could be a really huge thing. It could wind up saving lives, and maybe even our democracy and civil liberties.
My thanks to Larry Motuz for bringing this video to my attention.
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