from the another-censorship-bill dept
Once again, the Texas legislature is coming after the most common method of safe and effective abortion today—medication abortion.
Senate Bill (S.B.) 2880* seeks to prevent the sale and distribution of abortion pills—but it doesn’t stop there. By restricting access to certain information online, the bill tries to keep people from learning about abortion drugs, or even knowing that they exist.
If passed, S.B. 2880 would make it illegal to “provide information” on how to obtain an abortion-inducing drug. If you exchange e-mails or have an online chat about seeking an abortion, you could violate the bill. If you create a website that shares information about legal abortion services in other states, you could violate the bill. Even your social media posts could put you at risk.
On top of going after online speakers who create and post content themselves, the bill also targets social media platforms, websites, email services, messaging apps, and any other “interactive computer service” simply for hosting or making that content available.
In other words, Texas legislators not only want to make sure no one can start a discussion on these topics, they also want to make sure no one can find one. The goal is to wipe this information from the internet altogether. That creates glaring free-speech issues with this bill and, if passed, the consequences would be dire.
The bill is carefully designed to scare people into silence.
First, S.B. 2880 empowers average citizens to sue anyone that violates the law. An “interactive computer service” can also be sued if it “allows residents of [Texas] to access information or material that aids, abets, assists or facilitates efforts to obtain elective abortions or abortion-inducing drugs.”
So, similar to Texas Senate Bill 8, the bill encourages anyone to file lawsuits against those who merely speak about or provide access to certain information. This is intended to, and will, chill free speech. The looming threat of litigation can be used to silence those who seek to give women truthful information about their reproductive options—potentially putting their health or lives in danger.
Second, S.B. 2880 encourages online intermediaries to take down abortion-related content. For example, if sued under the law, a defendant platform can escape liability by showing that, once discovered, they promptly “block[ed] access to any information . . . that assists or facilitates efforts to obtain elective abortions or abortion-inducing drugs.”
The bill also grants them “absolute and nonwaivable immunity” against claims arising from takedowns, denials of service, or any other “action taken to restrict access to or availability of [this] information.” In other words, if someone sues a social media platform or internet service provider for censorship, they are well-shielded from facing consequences. This further tips the scales in favor of blocking more websites, posts, and users.
In three different provisions of the 43-page bill, the drafters go out of their way to assure us that S.B. 2880 should not be construed to prohibit speech or conduct that’s protected by the First Amendment. But simply stating that the law does not restrict free speech does not make it so. The obvious goal of this bill is to restrict access to information about abortion medications online. It’s hard to imagine what claims could be brought under such a bill that don’t implicate our free speech rights.
The bill’s imposition of civil and criminal liability also conflicts with a federal law that protects online intermediaries’ ability to host user-generated speech, 47 U.S.C. § 230 (“Section 230”), including speech about abortion medication. Although the bill explicitly states that it does not conflict with Section 230, that assurance remains meaningful only so long as Section 230’s protections remain robust. But Congress is currently considering revisions—or even a full repeal of Section 230. Any weakening of Section 230 will create more space for those empowered by this bill to use the courts to pressure intermediaries/platforms to remove information about abortion medication.
Whenever the government tries to restrict our ability to access information, our First Amendment rights are threatened. This is exactly what Texas lawmakers are trying to do with S.B. 2880. Anyone who cares about free speech—regardless of how they feel about reproductive care—should urge lawmakers to oppose this bill and others like it.
- H.B. 5510 is the identical House version of S.B. 2880.
Originally published to the EFF Deeplinks blog.
from the if-you-build-it,-they-will-come dept
Last year Trumplicans killed a popular program that provided poor people with $30 off of their monthly broadband bill. The FCC’s Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) was, unsurprisingly, very popular, with more than 23 million Americans benefitting at its peak.
At the time, the GOP claimed they were simply looking to save money. The real reason the program was killed, of course, was that the ACP was popular with their constituents (the majority of ACP participants were in red states) and they didn’t want Dems to take credit during an election season.
A recent report by The Brattle Group actually found that the $7-$8 billion annual taxpayer cost of the program generated between $28.9 and $29.5 billion in savings thanks to expanded access to affordable internet, remote work opportunities, online education tools, and remote telehealth services. In other words: the program more than paid for itself via downstream benefits (something DOGE dudebros and other Trump cultists have a hard time getting their heads around).
When the program was killed, 23 million Americans suddenly faced significantly higher broadband bills. In some states, community broadband networks have been filling the void. Like in Longmont, Colorado, where the local community-owned Nextlight broadband network has been offering low-income families dirt cheap broadband access.
Because it’s actually interested in serving the community instead of exploiting it, Nextlight’s broadband speeds and pricing are already much cheaper than you’d see from a regional monopoly like Comcast or AT&T. But their low-income plans are even cheaper, with the town offering symmetrical 100 Mbps broadband for $15 a month, and symmetrical gigabit broadband for $45 a month:
According to Longmont officials, the low-income discounts applied to their community-owned broadband network (which just reached 28,000 users total) now reach
That a town built its own broadband network and offers most residents super fast, very cheap fiber access is a pretty cool thing that simply… doesn’t get the kind of policy or press attention it deserves. It’s an interesting example of broadband being treated as an important utility and not exclusively a profit-seeking business, and it’s an example of government directly and efficiently working for the people. And a bipartisan coalition of people being supportive and generally happy about it!
I think it’s also a useful example of the potential, highly localized future we could build if the federal government is going to continue to be too insane, incompetent, and corrupt to function.
When Republicans killed the program the press had a hard time actively blaming Republicans. Most articles just blamed a vague “congressional refusal to fund the program.” It’s part of a toxic, propaganda-laden modern media environment where modern Republicans rarely have agency or are required to take real ownership of their own unpopular policies that harm very real people.
It’s worth remembering that Republicans also tried to ban community broadband during the height of COVID, just when these networks were demonstrating their effectiveness. They didn’t do this out of any functional value system; they did it to protect shitty regional telecom monopolies from better, cheaper, faster service with better, more local customer support.
It’s not a panacea (building these kinds of networks can be complicated, expensive, and tricky to manage), but this model of locally-owned fiber networks (especially when they’re open access) often genuinely works to boost broadband quality and lower prices. It’s the kind of government-driven “abundance” guys like Ezra Klein claim to be clamoring for, yet the efforts still aren’t getting the attention they deserve in press and policy circles.
Filed Under: ACP, affordability, Affordable Connectivity Program, broadband, fcc, fiber, gigabit, low income, municipal