The fight for free speech has engulfed big tech as, as Florida becomes the first state
to punish social media platforms for banning political candidates. How did we get here
and will other states follow suit? I have attorney Steve Luongo joining me now. Steve,
this sounds like an entire new industry. It sounds like, okay, you've got, you've got
Twitter who wants to ban somebody because they disagree with what they say. First of
all, most people are pretty torn on that. They don't want us anoint, you know, they,
they don't want, this, this is Orwellian, to, to, to think that all we can think about
is what the big tech people want us to think about. But Republicans like DeSantis are grabbing
a hold of that and if you look at the numbers, the population is sick and tired of it. Take
it from there. Right. Absolutely. It's what you're talking
about is these elections and the political elections that we're talking about are razor
thin. So you have both sides of the party going half and half. And what governor DeSantis
signed last month is a bill that does certain things. It allows Florida citizens to bring
cause of action individually against these social media tech platforms. It also allows
the Florida attorney general to bring cause of action against them. And lastly, and what's
been getting the most publicity, is it prohibits these social media platforms from what they
call de-platforming or taking off all Florida, Florida political candidates and allowing
the Florida election commission to impose large monetary fines, upwards of $250,000.
Okay. So let's talk about the obvious arguments. Argument first amendment. We're going to hear
first amendment. The platform has right to do that. But you're also going to hear part
of the infrastructure for these platforms was built by taxpayers.
Right. I mean, you can't avoid that. Part of the
infrastructure was built by, I don't care if it's this much of the infrastructure. The
other part of it is the commerce clause, right? Right.
Constitute, con law 1 0 1, you know, the con, the, the, the commerce clause. Talk about
that. Absolutely. The two biggest attacks on this
bill that we're seeing are obviously constitutional is a first amendment violation or not. Are
we making a private company publish speech against their own private will and enforcing
government speech? What we also are seeing is the violation of what they call the chapter
230 of the communications decency act. And that allows these social media platforms immunity
to monitor their own platform and the communications that are expressed there. Now, the caveat
to that is that the act allows them to do that. However, they need to do it in good
faith and that's really kind of the argument we're seeing from Republicans and conservatives
is that they're monitoring behavior and content on these social media platforms, but they're
not doing it in good faith. Okay. Just to show, just to, to make the point
that this is not a forgone conclusion, that this is unconstitutional. Why, why? Because
you have a diff, you have an issue that a jury could disagree about. One side says black,
the other side says white, anytime you have a dispute like that as a matter of law, it's
very difficult to come in and say, well, we're just going to make it go away on a summary
judgment or directed verdict, because there is a question. There's a question of fact,
right? Absolutely. And what we're seeing right now
is three days after this law was signed, it's supposed to take effect July 1st. There was
a lawsuit filed in Tallahassee in federal court, and we're going to find out the answers
there. They are alleging the same things that we just talked about, constitutional violations
of the first and 14th amendment, as well as the federal preemption of chapter in section
230. Yeah. But I'm talking about the other side.
I'm talking about the candidate who says, you've taken me off of this. As a matter of
law, you can't say that I have, that you have complete protection under the first amendment.
Right. Because it is, you, you can't say that as
a matter of law. But you can, because you have to judge the facts. Some trier fact has
the right to say, look, let me know, candidate, did they act in bad faith? Platform, do you
think you have this exclusive right? And here's where I think it goes, the American public
is at this point, just look at the, these aren't my numbers. Look at the numbers. They're
fed up with social media tech giants making decisions about what we can and can't listen
to. 1984, Right? Absolutely.
I mean, that's what we're talking about. Don't you give them the right to say what they want
to say, even though you might disagree with it. I mean, look, you had George Orwell spent
four books about this, and it's just, it's, it's surfaced again. And we have to really
think analytically about it because I don't think there's a clear answer here. DeSantis,
of course, he's just playing to the public. Let me be a demagogue. Let me see what I can
stir up. But where this thing lands, it could be a surprise, couldn't it?
Yes, sir. Thank you for joining me.
Absolutely.