Day: September 29, 2023

The Supreme Court agreed Friday to decide whether state laws that seek to regulate Facebook, TikTok, X and other social media platforms violate the Constitution.

The justices will review laws enacted by Republican-dominated legislatures and signed by Republican governors in Florida and Texas. While the details vary, both laws aim to prevent social media companies from censoring users based on their viewpoints.

The court’s announcement, three days before the start of its new term, comes as the justices continue to grapple with how laws written at the dawn of the digital age, or earlier, apply to the online world.

The justices had already agreed to decide whether public officials can block critics from commenting on their social media accounts, an issue that previously came up in a case involving then-President Donald Trump. The court dismissed the Trump case when his presidential term ended in January 2021.

Separately, the high court also could consider a lower-court order limiting executive branch officials’ communications with social media companies about controversial online posts.

The new case follows conflicting rulings by two appeals courts, one of which upheld the Texas law, while the other struck down Florida’s statute. By a 5-4 vote, the justices kept the Texas law on hold while litigation over it continues.

But the alignment was unusual. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett voted to grant the emergency request from two technology industry groups that challenged the law in federal court.

Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Elena Kagan and Neil Gorsuch would have allowed the law to remain in effect. In dissent, Alito wrote, “Social media platforms have transformed the way people communicate with each other and obtain news.”

Proponents of the laws, including Republican elected officials in several states that have similar measures, have sought to portray social media companies as generally liberal in outlook and hostile to ideas outside of that viewpoint, especially from the political right.

The tech sector warned that the laws would prevent platforms from removing extremism and hate speech.

Without offering any explanation, the justices had put off consideration of the case even though both sides agreed the high court should step in.

The justices had other social media issues before them last year, including a plea the court did not embrace to soften legal protections tech companies have for posts by their users.
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The streets of cities across Latin America were bathed in green Thursday as tens of thousands of women marched to commemorate International Safe Abortion Day.

Latin American feminists have spent decades fighting to roll back strict prohibitions, although there are still few countries with a total ban, like El Salvador and Dominican Republic.

In Mexico, marchers celebrated the recent decision by Mexico’s Supreme Court to decriminalize abortions at the federal level. In Argentina, marchers had a more somber tone, worrying that the strength of a populist far-right presidential candidate going into elections in October could signal peril after years of work by feminists.

Abortion was the heart of the protests, but crowds of women also raised alarm about the region’s high rates of gender-based violence as well as abuses aimed at LGBTQ+ communities.

Green smoke floated over a roaring crowd of thousands of women in Mexico City who waved green handkerchiefs, which have become the symbol of Latin America’s “green wave” abortion movement. Signs reading “It’s my decision” and “Free and safe abortions for everyone” speckled the crowd.

The march came just weeks after Mexico’s Supreme Court knocked down all federal criminal penalties for abortion, ruling that national laws prohibiting the procedure are unconstitutional and violate women’s rights. The move will also require federal health institutions to offer abortion to anyone who requests it.

“It’s absolutely an achievement,” said Fernanda Castro, an organizer at GIRE, the women’s rights organization that brought forward the lawsuit before Mexico’s high court. “And now we have another even more important fight — decriminalizing abortion in the minds of the people.”

While 20 Mexican states still have abortion bans on the books, the decision by the Supreme Court greatly expanded access to the procedure in a country where reproductive laws were long defined by its religious and conservative roots.

Latin American feminists have spent decades fighting to roll back strict prohibitions.

Mexico City was the first Mexican jurisdiction to decriminalize abortion 15 years ago. The trend picked up speed in Argentina, which in 2020 legalized the procedure. In 2022, Colombia, a highly conservative country, did the same.

Brazil may be next. Currently, abortion is a crime with exceptions for cases of rape and birth defects in a fetus, but a case before the nation’s Supreme Court could potentially decriminalize the procedure up to 12 weeks of gestation.

“The green wave is going to keep growing and (Brazilian women) are not alone,” Castro said.

While marches in Mexico and other parts of the region were celebratory, in Argentina’s capital of Buenos Aires, the demonstration was marked with unease.

As elections loom in October, many in the crowd marching toward the Congress building fear their legal gains may soon get rolled back with the rise of right-wing candidate Javier Milei.

Now the leading candidate in polls, Milei, has spoken out against abortion, compulsory sex education in schools and free medical coverage for sex change treatments, among other issues. If he wins, he has promised to hold a referendum to repeal the decriminalization of abortion nationwide approved by Congress in 2022.

“More than winning more rights, this is about protecting them. The most important thing is to protect what’s already there,” said Sara Rivas, an art student. “Milei is a denialist. We’ve seen him deny everything from femicides to the years-long struggle that has brought us to this green wave.”

Still, Rivas, who carried a sign with a drawing of Milei hanging from a green bandana, said women will turn to the same approach they have used for decades to press for their goals.

“Our answer is that we are here. We are not going to leave the streets, because these gains, we conquered them in the streets,” she said.
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