Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey apparently thinks he gets to be editor-in-chief of every social media platform. In his latest attack on free speech rights, Bailey has announced a \u201cfirst-in-the-nation rule\u201d that would force social media companies to let users choose third-party content moderators rather than using the platforms\u2019 own moderation systems.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s just one tiny problem: this completely ignores what the Supreme Court explicitly said about government control of content moderation just months ago in Moody v. NetChoice. Even crazier, Bailey claims that his new rule is\u00a0based on<\/em>\u00a0the ruling in Moody.<\/p>\n As a reminder, the\u00a0Supreme Court\u2019s ruling<\/a>\u00a0in last year\u2019s Moody v. NetChoice case, the Justices\u00a0made it quite clear<\/a>\u00a0that the First Amendment protects social media content moderation decisions, and that the state has no business telling companies how to moderate. Justice Kagan, in the majority opinion, signed onto by Chief Justice Roberts, Justice Kavanaugh, and Justice Barrett, made it clear that what social media companies do in content moderation is quintessential protected First Amendment activity no different than editors of a newspaper choosing what to publish:<\/p>\n To the extent that social media platforms create expressive products, they receive the First Amendment\u2019s protection. And although these cases are here in a preliminary posture, the current record suggests that some platforms, in at least some functions, are indeed engaged in expression. In constructing certain feeds, those platforms make choices about what third-party speech to display and how to display it. They include and exclude, organize and prioritize\u2014and in making millions of those decisions each day, produce their own distinctive compilations of expression.<\/em>\u00a0And while much about social media is new, the essence of that project is something this Court has seen before<\/em><\/strong>. Traditional publishers and editors also select and shape other parties\u2019 expression into their own curated speech products. And we have repeatedly held that laws curtailing their editorial choices must meet the First Amendment\u2019s requirements. The principle does not change because the curated compilation has gone from the physical to the virtual world. In the latter, as in the former,<\/em>\u00a0government efforts to alter an edited compilation of third-party expression are subject to judicial review for compliance with the First Amendment<\/em><\/strong>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n In short, content moderation is protected by the First Amendment, and states are not able to simply ignore that. Indeed, the ruling had even more explicit words for the Fifth Circuit, which had ruled earlier (in an absolutely nutty ruling<\/a>) that states could easily pass laws that told websites how to moderate. The Supreme Court made it clear that such a claim was utter nonsense:<\/p>\n But it is necessary to say more about how the First Amendment relates to the laws\u2019 content-moderation provisions, to ensure that the facial analysis proceeds on the right path in the courts below.<\/em>\u00a0That need is especially stark for the Fifth Circuit<\/em><\/strong>. Recall that it held that the content choices the major platforms make for their main feeds are \u201cnot speech\u201d at all, so States may regulate them free of the First Amendment\u2019s restraints. 49 F. 4th, at 494; see supra, at 8. And even if those activities were expressive, the court held, Texas\u2019s interest in better balancing the marketplace of ideas would satisfy First Amendment scrutiny. See 49 F. 4th, at 482.<\/em>\u00a0If we said nothing about those views, the court presumably would repeat them when it next considers NetChoice\u2019s challenge. It would thus find that significant applications of the Texas law\u2014and so significant inputs into the appropriate facial analysis\u2014raise no First Amendment difficulties.<\/em>\u00a0But that conclusion would rest on a serious misunderstanding of First Amendment precedent and principle. The Fifth Circuit was wrong in concluding that Texas\u2019s restrictions on the platforms\u2019 selection, ordering, and labeling of third-party posts do not interfere with expression<\/em><\/strong>. And the court was wrong to treat as valid Texas\u2019s interest in changing the content of the platforms\u2019 feeds. Explaining why that is so will prevent the Fifth Circuit from repeating its errors as to Facebook\u2019s and YouTube\u2019s main feeds. (And our analysis of Texas\u2019s law may also aid the Eleventh Circuit, which saw the First Amendment issues much as we do, when next considering NetChoice\u2019s facial challenge.) But a caveat: Nothing said here addresses any of the laws\u2019 other applications, which may or may not share the First Amendment problems described below<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Indeed, the Supreme Court said that the Fifth Circuit\u2019s attempt to block social media companies from moderating in a particular way directly would violate the First Amendment:<\/p>\n Contrary to what the Fifth Circuit thought,<\/em>\u00a0the current record indicates that the Texas law does regulate speech<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0when applied in the way the parties focused on below\u2014when applied, that is, to prevent Facebook (or YouTube) from using its content-moderation standards to remove, alter, organize, prioritize, or disclaim posts in its News Feed (or homepage).<\/em>\u00a0The law then prevents exactly the kind of editorial judgments this Court has previously held to receive First Amendment protection<\/em><\/strong>. It prevents a platform from compiling the third-party speech it wants in the way it wants, and thus from offering the expressive product that most reflects its own views and priorities. Still more,<\/em>\u00a0the law\u2014again, in that specific application\u2014is unlikely to withstand First Amendment scrutiny<\/em><\/strong>. Texas has thus far justified the law as necessary to balance the mix of speech on Facebook\u2019s News Feed and similar platforms; and the record reflects that Texas officials passed it because they thought those feeds skewed against politically conservative voices. But this Court has many times held, in many contexts, that<\/em>\u00a0it is no job for government to decide what counts as the right balance of private expression\u2014to \u201cun-bias\u201d what it thinks biased, rather than to leave such judgments to speakers and their audiences.<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0That principle works for social-media platforms as it does for others.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n So, you\u2019d have to be pretty fucking bad at reading to think that this case somehow blesses the idea that the government can decide how social media companies can moderate.<\/p>\n Enter Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey. Bailey is no stranger to\u00a0attacking<\/a>\u00a0the\u00a0free speech rights<\/a>\u00a0of those he disagrees with.<\/p>\n Last week, Bailey\u00a0announced<\/a>\u00a0a new rule,\u00a0based on his reading<\/strong>\u00a0of the Moody decision, that would effectively make him Missouri\u2019s Chief Content Moderation Officer. Under the guise of \u201cprotecting free speech,\u201d Bailey is attempting to use Missouri\u2019s consumer protection laws to force social media companies to let users bypass their moderation systems entirely:<\/p>\n Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey today announced the filing of a first-in-the-nation rule under the Missouri Merchandising Practices Act that targets corporate censorship and secures freedom of expression for social media users. The rule requires Big Tech platforms to allow Missouri users to choose their own content moderators rather than being forced to rely on the biased algorithms of monopolistic tech giants.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cBig Tech oligarchs have manipulated the content Missourians see online and silenced voices they don\u2019t like. That ends now,\u201d said Attorney General Bailey. \u201cWith this rule, Missouri becomes the first state in America to take real, enforceable action against corporate censorship. I\u2019m using every tool to ensure Missourians\u2014not Silicon Valley\u2014control what they see on social media.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n The rule\u2014codified as 15 CSR 60-19\u2014clarifies that it is an unfair, deceptive, or otherwise unlawful practice for social media platforms to deny users the ability to choose an independent content moderator. Platforms must now provide a choice screen upon account activation and at regular intervals, must not favor their own moderation tools, and must allow full interoperability for outside moderators chosen by users.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n If this sounds familiar, it should. It\u2019s exactly the kind of government interference in content moderation that the Supreme Court just said states can\u2019t do.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s the truly ironic part: third-party content moderation is actually a great idea. I should know \u2014 I wrote\u00a0a pretty well-known paper<\/a>\u00a0advocating for exactly that approach, and I now serve\u00a0on the board<\/a>\u00a0of Bluesky, currently the only major social platform embracing this model.<\/p>\n But there\u2019s a world of difference between believing companies should adopt better moderation practices and claiming they\u2019re breaking the law by not doing so. Bailey\u2019s attempt to force this change through government mandate is not just legally backwards \u2014 it\u2019s exactly the kind of state interference in editorial decisions that the First Amendment was designed to prevent.<\/p>\n Bailey\u2019s claim that Moody somehow supports his position is particularly brazen. He specifically cites the Court\u2019s mention of \u201ccompetition laws\u201d as justification:<\/p>\n This regulation is grounded in the Supreme Court\u2019s guidance from Moody v. NetChoice, which recognized the authority of state governments to enforce competition laws in the interest of free expression.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n But Bailey either didn\u2019t read or deliberately ignored the actual context. The Court only mentioned competition laws to explicitly contrast them with content moderation mandates. Here\u2019s what they actually said:<\/p>\n \u2026<\/em>\u00a0the government cannot get its way just by asserting an interest in improving, or better balancing, the marketplace of ideas<\/em><\/strong>. Of course, it is critically important to have a well-functioning sphere of expression, in which citizens have access to information from many sources. That is the whole project of the First Amendment.<\/em>\u00a0And the government can take varied measures, like enforcing competition laws, to protect that access.<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0Cf., e.g., Turner I, 512 U. S., at 647 (protecting local broadcasting); Hurley, 515 U. S., at 577 (discussing Turner I ).<\/em>\u00a0But in case after case, the Court has barred the government from forcing a private speaker to present views it wished to spurn in order to rejigger the expressive realm.<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0The regulations in Tornillo, PG&E, and Hurley all were thought to promote greater diversity of expression. See supra, at 14\u201316. They also were thought to counteract advantages some private parties possessed in controlling \u201cenviable vehicle[s]\u201d for speech. Hurley, 515 U. S., at 577. Indeed, the Tornillo Court devoted six pages of its opinion to recounting a critique of the thencurrent media environment\u2014in particular, the disproportionate \u201cinfluen[ce]\u201d of a few speakers\u2014similar to one heard today (except about different entities). 418 U. S., at 249; see id., at 248\u2013254; supra, at 14\u201315. It made no difference.<\/em>\u00a0However imperfect the private marketplace of ideas, here was a worse proposal\u2014the government itself deciding when speech was imbalanced, and then coercing speakers to provide more of some views or less of others.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n The Court couldn\u2019t be more clear: while states can enforce genuine competition laws, they absolutely cannot use that power as a backdoor to control content moderation decisions. They even added a footnote specifically addressing attempts to twist competition law precedent (like Turner, which conservatives have long despised) to justify content moderation mandates:<\/p>\n Texas claims Turner as a counter-example, but that decision offers no help to speak of.<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0Turner did indeed hold that the FCC\u2019s must-carry provisions, requiring cable operators to give some of their channel space to local broadcast stations, passed First Amendment muster. See supra, at 15.<\/em>\u00a0But the interest there advanced was not to balance expressive content;<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0rather, the interest was to save the local-broadcast industry, so that it could continue to serve households without cable. That interest, the Court explained, was \u201cunrelated to the content of expression\u201d disseminated by either cable or broadcast speakers. Turner I, 512 U. S. 622, 647 (1994). And later, the Hurley Court again noted the difference. It understood the Government interest in Turner as one relating to competition policy: The FCC needed to limit the cable operators\u2019 \u201cmonopolistic,\u201d gatekeeping position \u201cin order to allow for the survival of broadcasters.\u201d 515 U. S., at 577.<\/em>\u00a0Unlike in regulating the parade\u2014or here in regulating Facebook\u2019s News Feed or YouTube\u2019s homepage\u2014the Government\u2019s interest was \u201cnot the alteration of speech.\u201d Ibid. And when that is so, the prospects of permissible regulation are entirely different.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n So either Missouri AG Andrew Bailey cannot read a basic Supreme Court decision, or he assumes no one else can.<\/p>\n Perhaps the most telling irony in all of this? If Bailey succeeds, his rule would force his good friend Elon Musk \u2014 for whom Bailey has enthusiastically conducted\u00a0censorial investigations designed to chill speech<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 to allow third-party moderation on ExTwitter. Something tells me neither Bailey nor Musk have thought through the implications of trying to become Missouri\u2019s content moderation czar.<\/p>\n Missouri AG Thinks Supreme Court Ruling Lets Him Control Social Media Moderation (It Doesn\u2019t)<\/a><\/p>\n More Law-Related Stories From Techdirt:<\/strong><\/p>\n AI Is Making Many People Rethink Copyright<\/a> The post Missouri AG Thinks Supreme Court Ruling Lets Him Control Social Media Moderation (It Doesn\u2019t)<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey apparently thinks he gets to be editor-in-chief of every social media platform. In his latest attack on free speech rights, Bailey has announced a \u201cfirst-in-the-nation rule\u201d that would force social media companies to let users choose third-party content moderators rather than using the platforms\u2019 own moderation systems.<\/p>\n There\u2019s just one tiny problem: this completely ignores what the Supreme Court explicitly said about government control of content moderation just months ago in Moody v. NetChoice. Even crazier, Bailey claims that his new rule is\u00a0based on<\/em>\u00a0the ruling in Moody.<\/p>\n As a reminder, the\u00a0Supreme Court\u2019s ruling<\/a>\u00a0in last year\u2019s Moody v. NetChoice case, the Justices\u00a0made it quite clear<\/a>\u00a0that the First Amendment protects social media content moderation decisions, and that the state has no business telling companies how to moderate. Justice Kagan, in the majority opinion, signed onto by Chief Justice Roberts, Justice Kavanaugh, and Justice Barrett, made it clear that what social media companies do in content moderation is quintessential protected First Amendment activity no different than editors of a newspaper choosing what to publish:<\/p>\n To the extent that social media platforms create expressive products, they receive the First Amendment\u2019s protection. And although these cases are here in a preliminary posture, the current record suggests that some platforms, in at least some functions, are indeed engaged in expression. In constructing certain feeds, those platforms make choices about what third-party speech to display and how to display it. They include and exclude, organize and prioritize\u2014and in making millions of those decisions each day, produce their own distinctive compilations of expression.<\/em>\u00a0And while much about social media is new, the essence of that project is something this Court has seen before<\/em><\/strong>. Traditional publishers and editors also select and shape other parties\u2019 expression into their own curated speech products. And we have repeatedly held that laws curtailing their editorial choices must meet the First Amendment\u2019s requirements. The principle does not change because the curated compilation has gone from the physical to the virtual world. In the latter, as in the former,<\/em>\u00a0government efforts to alter an edited compilation of third-party expression are subject to judicial review for compliance with the First Amendment<\/em><\/strong>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n In short, content moderation is protected by the First Amendment, and states are not able to simply ignore that. Indeed, the ruling had even more explicit words for the Fifth Circuit, which had ruled earlier (in an absolutely nutty ruling<\/a>) that states could easily pass laws that told websites how to moderate. The Supreme Court made it clear that such a claim was utter nonsense:<\/p>\n But it is necessary to say more about how the First Amendment relates to the laws\u2019 content-moderation provisions, to ensure that the facial analysis proceeds on the right path in the courts below.<\/em>\u00a0That need is especially stark for the Fifth Circuit<\/em><\/strong>. Recall that it held that the content choices the major platforms make for their main feeds are \u201cnot speech\u201d at all, so States may regulate them free of the First Amendment\u2019s restraints. 49 F. 4th, at 494; see supra, at 8. And even if those activities were expressive, the court held, Texas\u2019s interest in better balancing the marketplace of ideas would satisfy First Amendment scrutiny. See 49 F. 4th, at 482.<\/em>\u00a0If we said nothing about those views, the court presumably would repeat them when it next considers NetChoice\u2019s challenge. It would thus find that significant applications of the Texas law\u2014and so significant inputs into the appropriate facial analysis\u2014raise no First Amendment difficulties.<\/em>\u00a0But that conclusion would rest on a serious misunderstanding of First Amendment precedent and principle. The Fifth Circuit was wrong in concluding that Texas\u2019s restrictions on the platforms\u2019 selection, ordering, and labeling of third-party posts do not interfere with expression<\/em><\/strong>. And the court was wrong to treat as valid Texas\u2019s interest in changing the content of the platforms\u2019 feeds. Explaining why that is so will prevent the Fifth Circuit from repeating its errors as to Facebook\u2019s and YouTube\u2019s main feeds. (And our analysis of Texas\u2019s law may also aid the Eleventh Circuit, which saw the First Amendment issues much as we do, when next considering NetChoice\u2019s facial challenge.) But a caveat: Nothing said here addresses any of the laws\u2019 other applications, which may or may not share the First Amendment problems described below<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Indeed, the Supreme Court said that the Fifth Circuit\u2019s attempt to block social media companies from moderating in a particular way directly would violate the First Amendment:<\/p>\n Contrary to what the Fifth Circuit thought,<\/em>\u00a0the current record indicates that the Texas law does regulate speech<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0when applied in the way the parties focused on below\u2014when applied, that is, to prevent Facebook (or YouTube) from using its content-moderation standards to remove, alter, organize, prioritize, or disclaim posts in its News Feed (or homepage).<\/em>\u00a0The law then prevents exactly the kind of editorial judgments this Court has previously held to receive First Amendment protection<\/em><\/strong>. It prevents a platform from compiling the third-party speech it wants in the way it wants, and thus from offering the expressive product that most reflects its own views and priorities. Still more,<\/em>\u00a0the law\u2014again, in that specific application\u2014is unlikely to withstand First Amendment scrutiny<\/em><\/strong>. Texas has thus far justified the law as necessary to balance the mix of speech on Facebook\u2019s News Feed and similar platforms; and the record reflects that Texas officials passed it because they thought those feeds skewed against politically conservative voices. But this Court has many times held, in many contexts, that<\/em>\u00a0it is no job for government to decide what counts as the right balance of private expression\u2014to \u201cun-bias\u201d what it thinks biased, rather than to leave such judgments to speakers and their audiences.<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0That principle works for social-media platforms as it does for others.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n So, you\u2019d have to be pretty fucking bad at reading to think that this case somehow blesses the idea that the government can decide how social media companies can moderate.<\/p>\n Enter Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey. Bailey is no stranger to\u00a0attacking<\/a>\u00a0the\u00a0free speech rights<\/a>\u00a0of those he disagrees with.<\/p>\n Last week, Bailey\u00a0announced<\/a>\u00a0a new rule,\u00a0based on his reading<\/strong>\u00a0of the Moody decision, that would effectively make him Missouri\u2019s Chief Content Moderation Officer. Under the guise of \u201cprotecting free speech,\u201d Bailey is attempting to use Missouri\u2019s consumer protection laws to force social media companies to let users bypass their moderation systems entirely:<\/p>\n Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey today announced the filing of a first-in-the-nation rule under the Missouri Merchandising Practices Act that targets corporate censorship and secures freedom of expression for social media users. The rule requires Big Tech platforms to allow Missouri users to choose their own content moderators rather than being forced to rely on the biased algorithms of monopolistic tech giants.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cBig Tech oligarchs have manipulated the content Missourians see online and silenced voices they don\u2019t like. That ends now,\u201d said Attorney General Bailey. \u201cWith this rule, Missouri becomes the first state in America to take real, enforceable action against corporate censorship. I\u2019m using every tool to ensure Missourians\u2014not Silicon Valley\u2014control what they see on social media.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n The rule\u2014codified as 15 CSR 60-19\u2014clarifies that it is an unfair, deceptive, or otherwise unlawful practice for social media platforms to deny users the ability to choose an independent content moderator. Platforms must now provide a choice screen upon account activation and at regular intervals, must not favor their own moderation tools, and must allow full interoperability for outside moderators chosen by users.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n If this sounds familiar, it should. It\u2019s exactly the kind of government interference in content moderation that the Supreme Court just said states can\u2019t do.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s the truly ironic part: third-party content moderation is actually a great idea. I should know \u2014 I wrote\u00a0a pretty well-known paper<\/a>\u00a0advocating for exactly that approach, and I now serve\u00a0on the board<\/a>\u00a0of Bluesky, currently the only major social platform embracing this model.<\/p>\n But there\u2019s a world of difference between believing companies should adopt better moderation practices and claiming they\u2019re breaking the law by not doing so. Bailey\u2019s attempt to force this change through government mandate is not just legally backwards \u2014 it\u2019s exactly the kind of state interference in editorial decisions that the First Amendment was designed to prevent.<\/p>\n Bailey\u2019s claim that Moody somehow supports his position is particularly brazen. He specifically cites the Court\u2019s mention of \u201ccompetition laws\u201d as justification:<\/p>\n This regulation is grounded in the Supreme Court\u2019s guidance from Moody v. NetChoice, which recognized the authority of state governments to enforce competition laws in the interest of free expression.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n But Bailey either didn\u2019t read or deliberately ignored the actual context. The Court only mentioned competition laws to explicitly contrast them with content moderation mandates. Here\u2019s what they actually said:<\/p>\n \u2026<\/em>\u00a0the government cannot get its way just by asserting an interest in improving, or better balancing, the marketplace of ideas<\/em><\/strong>. Of course, it is critically important to have a well-functioning sphere of expression, in which citizens have access to information from many sources. That is the whole project of the First Amendment.<\/em>\u00a0And the government can take varied measures, like enforcing competition laws, to protect that access.<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0Cf., e.g., Turner I, 512 U. S., at 647 (protecting local broadcasting); Hurley, 515 U. S., at 577 (discussing Turner I ).<\/em>\u00a0But in case after case, the Court has barred the government from forcing a private speaker to present views it wished to spurn in order to rejigger the expressive realm.<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0The regulations in Tornillo, PG&E, and Hurley all were thought to promote greater diversity of expression. See supra, at 14\u201316. They also were thought to counteract advantages some private parties possessed in controlling \u201cenviable vehicle[s]\u201d for speech. Hurley, 515 U. S., at 577. Indeed, the Tornillo Court devoted six pages of its opinion to recounting a critique of the thencurrent media environment\u2014in particular, the disproportionate \u201cinfluen[ce]\u201d of a few speakers\u2014similar to one heard today (except about different entities). 418 U. S., at 249; see id., at 248\u2013254; supra, at 14\u201315. It made no difference.<\/em>\u00a0However imperfect the private marketplace of ideas, here was a worse proposal\u2014the government itself deciding when speech was imbalanced, and then coercing speakers to provide more of some views or less of others.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n The Court couldn\u2019t be more clear: while states can enforce genuine competition laws, they absolutely cannot use that power as a backdoor to control content moderation decisions. They even added a footnote specifically addressing attempts to twist competition law precedent (like Turner, which conservatives have long despised) to justify content moderation mandates:<\/p>\n Texas claims Turner as a counter-example, but that decision offers no help to speak of.<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0Turner did indeed hold that the FCC\u2019s must-carry provisions, requiring cable operators to give some of their channel space to local broadcast stations, passed First Amendment muster. See supra, at 15.<\/em>\u00a0But the interest there advanced was not to balance expressive content;<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0rather, the interest was to save the local-broadcast industry, so that it could continue to serve households without cable. That interest, the Court explained, was \u201cunrelated to the content of expression\u201d disseminated by either cable or broadcast speakers. Turner I, 512 U. S. 622, 647 (1994). And later, the Hurley Court again noted the difference. It understood the Government interest in Turner as one relating to competition policy: The FCC needed to limit the cable operators\u2019 \u201cmonopolistic,\u201d gatekeeping position \u201cin order to allow for the survival of broadcasters.\u201d 515 U. S., at 577.<\/em>\u00a0Unlike in regulating the parade\u2014or here in regulating Facebook\u2019s News Feed or YouTube\u2019s homepage\u2014the Government\u2019s interest was \u201cnot the alteration of speech.\u201d Ibid. And when that is so, the prospects of permissible regulation are entirely different.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n So either Missouri AG Andrew Bailey cannot read a basic Supreme Court decision, or he assumes no one else can.<\/p>\n Perhaps the most telling irony in all of this? If Bailey succeeds, his rule would force his good friend Elon Musk \u2014 for whom Bailey has enthusiastically conducted\u00a0censorial investigations designed to chill speech<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 to allow third-party moderation on ExTwitter. Something tells me neither Bailey nor Musk have thought through the implications of trying to become Missouri\u2019s content moderation czar.<\/p>\n Missouri AG Thinks Supreme Court Ruling Lets Him Control Social Media Moderation (It Doesn\u2019t)<\/a><\/p>\n More Law-Related Stories From Techdirt:<\/strong><\/p>\n AI Is Making Many People Rethink Copyright<\/a> Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey apparently thinks he gets to be editor-in-chief of every social media platform. In his latest attack on free speech rights, Bailey has announced a \u201cfirst-in-the-nation rule\u201d that would force social media companies to let users choose third-party content moderators rather than using the platforms\u2019 own moderation systems. There\u2019s just one […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":119264,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-119263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xira.com\/p\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/social-media-300x199-u0W1r6.jpeg?fit=300%2C199&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119263"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119263\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/119264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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Milwaukee PD Wants To Trade 2.5 Million Mugshots For Free Facial Recognition Tech<\/a>
Effective Accelerationism Is Just Technological Authoritarianism With A Smile<\/a><\/p>\n\n
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Milwaukee PD Wants To Trade 2.5 Million Mugshots For Free Facial Recognition Tech<\/a>
Effective Accelerationism Is Just Technological Authoritarianism With A Smile<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"