Technology

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott Announces On Twitter The Livestreaming On Facebook Of His Signing Of A Bill That Removes 1st Amendment Rights For Both

'All it's really going to do is waste a ton of taxpayer money in Texas.'

By  
on

We’ve talked a bunch about just how incredibly unconstitutional Texas’s social media content moderation bill, HB20 is, so I don’t really need to cover any of that again. You can look it up — or just read how a court found Florida’s similar bill unconstitutional.

Still, the entire point of this bill is to play up a culture war for grandstanding politicians, and Texas Governor Greg Abbott wants to grandstand with the best of them (even if he’s a pathetic copy of some of the other grandstanders in his party). Even so, it still was quite something to see Abbott announce on Twitter that people should watch him on Facebook as he signed the bill into law — a bill that would attempt to remove the 1st Amendment rights against compelled speech from both companies.

He’s doing this on the same day that the Justice Department is suing Texas for its equally unconstitutional anti-abortion “let everyone sue everyone and let the courts sort it out” bill.

I know that some people are concerned about this bill, and what awful things it will do for social media, but all it’s really going to do is waste a ton of taxpayer money in Texas, which Abbott and the other faux culture warriors want to use as basically taxpayer-funded campaign dollars to get their names in the headlines, talking about they’re “fighting for free speech” when all they’re doing is removing 1st Amendment rights, abusing the power the voters entrusted with them, and throwing their money away on lawyers who have nothing legitimate to defend.

It’s political theater, with your speech and your tax dollars being held hostage. No one should accept this as reasonable, but these are the times we live in, where corruption and violations of the oath of office for the sake of some dumb culture war are more important than governing and doing what’s right.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott Announces On Twitter The Livestreaming On Facebook Of His Signing Of A Bill That Removes 1st Amendment Rights For Both

More Law-Related Stories From Techdirt:

Sponsored

Police Department Caught Falsifying Evidence Logs Used In Trial Of PD Employee Who Was Caught Falsifying Evidence Logs
Body Cam Video Shows Cop Killing A Harmless Dog Within 15 Seconds Of Arriving At The Scene
Sixth Circuit Reaffirms It’s A Fourth Amendment Violation To Chalk Car Tires For Parking Enforcement Purposes

Sponsored

CRM Banner

Topics

,