Austin, Texas – Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed House Bill 20 into law on Thursday.
The bill aims to protect Texans from wrongful social media censorship. It was passed after the governor named social media censorship as one of the key topics for the second special session in August.
“We will always defend the freedom of speech in Texas, which is why I am proud to sign House Bill 20 into law to protect first amendment rights in the Lone Star State,” said Gov. Abbott. “Social media websites have become our modern-day public square.
They are a place for healthy public debate where information should be able to flow freely — but there is a dangerous movement by social media companies to silence conservative viewpoints and ideas.
That is wrong, and we will not allow it in Texas. I thank Senator Bryan Hughes, Representative Briscoe Cain, and the Texas Legislature for ensuring that House Bill 20 reached my desk during the second special session.”
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According to Abbott’s office, the law will prevent social media companies with more than 50 million monthly users from banning users simply based on their political viewpoints.
Furthermore, it requires several consumer protection disclosures and processes related to content management on the social media sites to which the bill applies.
These sites must disclose their content management and moderation policies and implement a complaint and appeals process for content they remove, providing a reason for the removal and a review of their decision.
The governor was joined Thursday by Sen. Bryan Hughes and Rep. Briscoe Cain, the bill’s authors, as well as Sens. Charles Perry, Dawn Buckingham and Angela Paxton.
The new law is one of several Republican efforts to scare web companies away from removing objectionable but lawful content, a fight conservative politicians have framed as an anti-censorship battle against companies that are akin to phone companies or other communications utilities.
However, some say its future might be uncertain, with similarities to Florida’s social media law.
NetChoice, one of the plaintiffs in that Florida lawsuit, released a statement condemning the bill. “HB 20 has the same First Amendment flaws as the Florida law that a federal court blocked this summer.
The same outcome will almost certainly occur in Texas,” said NetChoice president Steve DelBianco in a statement.