The law, social media and George Orwell

Hey, it's Josh in New York. The Supreme Court doesn't seem ready to settle disputes about social media censorship. But first...Three things [View in browser]( [Bloomberg]( Hey, it's Josh in New York. The Supreme Court doesn't seem ready to settle disputes about social media censorship. But first... Three things you need to know today: • Dell jumps on excitement[ for AI-ready servers]( • IPhones in China get [steeply discounted on weak demand]( • Billionaire Marcelo Claure shapes [new empire post-WeWork collapse]( Whose rights are at risk? The long-running fight over perceived anti-conservative bias on social media platforms reached the US Supreme Court this week, when the justices heard oral arguments in two related cases challenging state laws in [Texas]( and [Florida]( limiting how internet companies police their platforms. The states say they're combating abusive corporate behavior, the tech industry says the laws violate the First Amendment, and dozens of outside groups have weighed in with briefs tackling the debate from various angles. Essentially, this is a disagreement about whether tech platforms are threatening their users’ freedom of speech, or are having their own freedom of speech threatened by the government. The conservative justices were split on the issue. Justice Samuel Alito argued that the entire concept of content moderation was a euphemism for censorship carried out by private businesses, rather than the government, and suggested that “some may want to resist the Orwellian temptation to re-categorize offensive conduct in seemingly bland terms.” Justice Brett Kavanaugh threw Orwell right back at Alito, arguing that the government shouldn't interfere in the decisions that private entities make about, say, what they allow to be posted on their websites. “When I think of Orwellian, I think of the state, not the private sector, not private individuals,” said Kavanaugh. As is often the case in legal debates over social media, the [four hours of oral arguments]( largely consisted of people grappling for analogies that best supported their cause. Tech platforms were compared to cable companies, utilities, and innkeepers (which shouldn't pick who they do business with based on political ideology), but also to newspapers or bookstores (which should be allowed to exert editorial control over what messaging they promote). None of these comparisons really stuck, and [no obvious consensus emerged](about how to apply these lofty concepts to the two specific laws in question. Throughout the day, the justices complained that no one was even sure how the laws would actually work. This could be blamed on the legislators who wrote them — both statutes have been widely described as vague and sloppily written — or on NetChoice, the trade group that challenged the laws before they went into effect. “We're just speculating as to what the law means,” Justice Clarence Thomas said at one point. In a blog post written before oral arguments, [Daphne Keller](bbg://people/profile/22208499), an internet law expert at Stanford who once worked at Google, wrote that it's [important to figure out whether there should be laws]( limiting how tech companies remove content or imposing rules requiring them to explain how they reach such decisions. The particular cases before the Supreme Court, she wrote, should be easy, “because the Texas and Florida laws were so badly designed and drafted. But that shouldn’t be the final word on either topic.” Before they decide on this case, the justices are planning to consider social media from a different angle. Later this month, they'll hear arguments in [a case]( that challenges the practice known as [jawboning](, in which governments suggest to social media companies what content they should consider removing. That case further complicates questions about content moderation, censorship and how the government interacts with tech companies — and it's safe to assume it won't be the last one to reach the court. Any final word on these issues still seems pretty far away. — [Joshua Brustein](mailto: jbrustein@bloomberg.net) The big story Pig-butchering scams have probably stolen more than[ $75 billion from victims worldwide]( according to a new study. The scams, which usually start with what appears to be a wrong-number text message, consist in luring people into making fake crypto investments. “These are large criminal organized networks, and they’re operating largely unscathed,” said John Griffin, a finance professor at the University of Texas at Austin. One to watch [Watch the Bloomberg Television interview with Margaret Mitchell, researcher and chief ethics scientist at AI startup Hugging Face.]( Get fully charged India’s government has approved $15.2 billion worth of investments in semiconductor fabrication plants [to build a chipmaking facility.]( UBS is in a battle with a wealthy Montreal family over the buyout of a [Canadian technology company.]( Foreign firms in China showed concern over Beijing’s lack of [feedback on data security.]( Synth Labs, a new Microsoft-backed startup, aims to tackle the challenge of [aligning AI actions with human intentions.Â]( Google faces an antitrust probe [over online ads in Canada]( More from Bloomberg Get Bloomberg Tech weeklies in your inbox: - [Cyber Bulletin]( for coverage of the shadow world of hackers and cyber-espionage - [Game On]( for reporting on the video game business - [Power On]( for Apple scoops, consumer tech news and more - [Screentime]( for a front-row seat to the collision of Hollywood and Silicon Valley - [Soundbite]( for reporting on podcasting, the music industry and audio trends - [Q&AI]( for answers to all your questions about AI Follow Us Like getting this newsletter? 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