Credit: Andrew Tijou, FlickrIt’s been quite two weeks for the United States Supreme Court. Last week, the court overturned the Chevron Doctrine, which defers to federal agencies when something isn’t expressly written into law, and ruled that the obstruction charges against the January 6th defendants were wrongfully determined.
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However, July 1 may have been the biggest day of this year’s term for the Supreme Court. The court ruled that former President Donald Trump has immunity for anything related to his official duty as president, including inciting the January 6th insurrection. This means that Trump’s trial will be delayed past the November election.
While the Trump case got most of the headlines from today’s opinions, a second opinion directly impacted Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and The Walt Disney Company. The Supreme Court pushed Florida’s social media law back to a lower court, saying that the lower court had not adequately evaluated the law’s effect on the First Amendment.
However, in doing so, the court temporarily suspended both the Texas and Florida social media laws while the lower courts reviewed them, a win for the tech companies.
The laws stem from the aftermath of the 2020 election. Republicans became concerned about alleged bias against conservative voices on social media, and state legislatures in Florida and Texas passed laws that diminished tech companies’ capacity to moderate speech on their platforms.
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The tech companies argued that the laws would handcuff their efforts to remove hate speech, bullying, and falsehoods from their platforms. The lawsuit was brought by Net Choice and the Computer and Communications Industry Association, which represents social media giants like Facebook and Google.
Essentially, the Supreme Court kicked the can down the road. While the law will shield conservatives on social media platforms, it will also make it more difficult for social media companies to remove false information and hate speech from their platforms.
This lawsuit will undoubtedly be heard again once the lower court rules on how it affects the First Amendment and free speech. When the laws are heard again, the Supreme Court will most likely invalidate them. The First Amendment protects people from censorship by the government, not by private companies.
However, one essential question looms over this decision: Why wasn’t The Walt Disney Company involved in this case against the Florida Social Media law?
While the Walt Disney Co. does not run a social media platform, the law would have also applied to online reviews for Disney films, merchandise, and even the Walt Disney World Resort. Disney monitors its reviews for hate speech and unfavorable content, especially people who speak out against Disney World.
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Remember When They Were Friends?
In 2021, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and the Florida Legislature crafted a wide-ranging law that would allow the state to punish social media companies for removing posts or refusing to publish posts from certain media companies or political figures, even if those posts violated the company’s rules on hate speech, violent incitements, or disinformation.
DeSantis justified taking on the tech companies by citing Twitter and Facebook’s bans on former President Donald Trump after he incited the January 6 Riot at the Capital Building.
But the law was so broadly written, on purpose, that it could have been used against any company doing business online, including Disney. For example, Disney could be punished for removing hate speech from the comments section on Disney+ or its Shop Disney.
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So, Disney does what Disney does and makes a phone call to the governor. Disney had just written Florida Governor Ron DeSantis a $50,000 check for his re-election campaign.
Working with the legislature and Stephanie Kopelousos, a legislative aide in the governor’s office at the time, Disney received a special carveout from Florida law, exempting them from it.
You may also remember Stephanie Kopelousos’ name. She is no longer a legislative aid in the governor’s office; she is the District Administrator for the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District, the board that oversees the Walt Disney World Resort.
Giving Disney that carveout opened them up to a host of other legal challenges. In an email to one of DeSantis’ in-house lawyers, attorneys at Cooper & Kirk, who have also represented the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District in its lawsuit against Disney, said that the Disney exception would be “difficult to explain and defend.”
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And in fact, that email has proven correct. Lawyers for the tech firms use that email and the Disney exception to show that DeSantis only wished to punish those who spoke out against him.
In an ironic twist, the email from Cooper & Kirk only came to light because of Disney’s current case against Governor DeSantis for government retaliation and violating Disney’s First Amendment Rights.
So, while the social media companies will continue to fight the Florida law, The Walt Disney Co. is safe knowing that it won’t have to pay millions for lawyers in this particular free speech fight.
What do you think about the United States Supreme Court rulings this term?