Texas Supreme Court Completely Confuses Section 230, Makes A Total Mess Of FOSTA

Texas Supreme Court Completely Confuses Section 230, Makes A Total Mess Of FOSTA

3 years ago
Anonymous $drS9DEX_Sj

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20210625/11151547059/texas-supreme-court-completely-confuses-section-230-makes-total-mess-fosta.shtml

So, this is... not great. Last year we wrote about a ridiculously bad ruling in Texas regarding a string of what certainly appear to be vexatious lawsuits that try to blame Facebook for sex trafficking. Texas's Supreme Court has now made its ruling on the matter and... it completely upends the limits of FOSTA by literally ignoring what the law explicitly says, and insisting it must mean something different. It is one of the strangest rulings I've ever seen.

The key issue is that Facebook sought a writ of mandamus, basically asking the Court to say "these lawsuits can't go forward because of Section 230." But that apparently requires the Justices on Texas's Supreme Court to read Section 230, as amended under FOSTA, and understand what it actually says. However, Justice Jimmy Blacklock apparently couldn't be bothered to do that. You can kind of get a sense of where this is going from the opening:

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