The Supreme Court of the United States will hold a hearing regarding a 25-year-old law that has protected tech companies from lawsuits and prosecution for content posted by their users, and which has been exploited and extended to censor Americans, usurp their civil liberties, and protect their free speech.

This week, the judgement is being keenly monitored since it might completely alter the regulations that have hitherto regulated the internet.

“Section 230 is seen as a fundamental law of the internet and considered inviolable by its staunch defenders. Section 230 was part of the Communication Decency Act, an anti-pornography law signed in 1996, that helped set the rules of the road for the internet, which was still in its infancy as an online playground for all. The idea was to protect the then embryonic internet sector from cascading lawsuits and to allow it to flourish while encouraging tech companies to moderate their content,” Breitbart reported about the case, adding:

“At the time, most of the attention went on limits put on sexual content, a part of the bill that was backed by then-president Bill Clinton and that was later struck down by the Supreme Court in a landmark case. But inserted into the legislation was Section 230, which stated that ‘no provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher’ or hold responsibility for the content that came from an outside party. Under the protection of Section 230, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or YouTube became the conduits of a world conversation without ever being at risk of a lawsuit by someone taking offense at a tweet or a controversial video.”

Martin Walsh of Conservative Brief stated that the Supreme Court recently heard arguments in a widely watched immigration issue that might create a significant precedent, adding:

“The Biden administration was questioned over its assumed authority to decide which people in the country illegally they can deport first. A pair of Republican attorneys general from Texas and Louisiana argued that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is violating federal immigration laws in doing so.

The nation’s highest court is considering a trio of issues distinct to the case, and while it’s unclear which way the justices might swing, some did appear to chastise the Biden administration’s arguments.”

“At the heart of the dispute is a September 2021 memo from Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas that laid out priorities for the arrest, detention, and deportation of certain non-citizens, reversing efforts by former President Donald Trump to increase deportations,” CNN reported. “Several of the conservative justices on Tuesday seemed ready to rule in favor of the states on a major threshold issue: whether Texas and Louisiana had the legal right to bring the challenge in the first place.”

In addressing whether the DHS guidelines were in conflict with two provisions of federal law, Justices John Roberts, Samuel Alito, and Brett Kavanaugh noted that the law states that certain immigrants “shall” be detained or removed from the country, which appeared to indicate that they were skeptical of the Biden administration’s presumed discretion.

“Shall means shall,” Roberts said. “Shouldn’t we just say what we think the law is,” he added while suggesting it ought to be left to other branches to “sort that out.”

More on this story via The Republic Brief:

The Supreme Court accepted the case after a district court judge blocked the DHS’s discretion in the matter, Walsh added. CONTINUE READING…