In a lively conversation on The Verge’s Decoder podcast, the Institute’s Jameel Jaffer spoke with Nilay Patel about the social media companies’ use of the First Amendment to challenge laws that regulate their activities.
Jaffer, who with the Institute’s Scott Wilkens recently penned a New York Times op-ed on cases in Florida and Texas involving social media regulation, spoke on the podcast about the need for a middle ground between technology companies that argue the First Amendment immunizes them from regulation altogether and state governments that argue the companies have essentially no First Amendment rights at all.
“The First Amendment doesn’t leave us with only these two possibilities, all or nothing,” maintained Jaffer. “You could have a set of rules that restricted state governments from effectively using social media regulation as a means of distorting political debate, but still allow legislatures to impose reasonable privacy and transparency and due process protections. There is that kind of middle ground.”
Listen to the full Decoder podcast below.
A. Adam Glenn was a writer/editor at the Knight First Amendment Institute.