Adi Robertson

Coney Barrett asks whether automated decisions are fundamentally different from conventional editorial judgments. Whitaker tries to bring up Twitter v. Taamneh, in which sites said their automation in a particular case (involving terrorism) didn’t present a viewpoint.

Brett Kavanaugh notes Whitaker’s opening statement doesn’t mention that the First Amendment is conventionally focused on government suppression of speech, not private speech decisions. Whitaker says there’s still a larger First Amendment interest in protecting freedom of speech from censorship by other parties.

Clarence Thomas complains that there’s a lack of specificity in the discussion about what’s covered, and Samuel Alito pushes on whether the law could regulate “expressive” conduct that should deserve First Amendment protection.

Brett Kavanaugh asks Florida attorney Whitaker about one ongoing question from critics: would saying the First Amendment doesn’t prevent forced speech on websites undercut the rights of all kinds of other businesses that deal with speech?

“But the one thing I know about the internet is that its variety is infinite,” Sotomayor continues. “So at what point at a challenge like this one does the law become so generalized, so broad, so unspecific really that you bear the burden of coming in and telling us exactly what the sweep is?”

Texas and Florida’s anti-moderation laws are explicitly pro-Republican, but as my colleague Lauren laid out last week, the lawsuits over them could have bigger tech regulation fallout. While we’re waiting for oral arguments to start, check out The Atlantic and The New Republic for a couple of pieces on the states’ counterintuitive bipartisan appeal, plus some countertakes from Lawfare and Techdirt too.

Filed in conjunction with a coalition of states, it’s making an argument that should be familiar to trial-watchers: Google is paying billions of dollars a year to stifle competition in the search market, and advertisers and consumers are facing the fallout.

AI is theoretically a labor-saving tool, but here’s yet another example of a perhaps more immediate use: keeping tabs on workers, in this case so they’ll upsell more customers at fast-food joints. It’s even got a cute name:

This time it involves not Taylor Swift, but comedian Bobbi Althoff, who’s become a target for users chasing clout with nonconsensual faked nudes under X’s anemic moderation: