AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Corporations are people, too. It's an old legal principle that's now being embraced by social media companies like Meta and TikTok. They say, just like people, corporations have First Amendment rights that protect their speech. As NPR's Bobby Allyn reports, regulating the tech industry just got a bit harder.
BOBBY ALLYN, BYLINE: Last week Republicans and Democrats in the Senate were celebrating. The chamber overwhelmingly passed the Kids Online Safety Act. Both parties can't agree on much, but they can get behind more online protections for children. The tech industry had a ready response. They said, no, no, no, this violates our free speech - to be clear, not the First Amendment rights of social media users, but the tech companies themselves.
TIM WU: A law that was intended to protect political dissidents and underdogs. And now it's protecting powerful non-human corporations.
ALLYN: That's Tim Wu. He's a tech policy expert who used to work in the Biden White House. And he says it's not just this one bill. Whether it's TikTok fighting against the U.S. government or social media companies resisting all sorts of state laws, the tech industry is using the First Amendment as a shield.
WU: You know, in an era where people are concerned about the power of the platforms over their life, the idea we can't do anything because of the First Amendment, the idea that it has anything to do with speech is pretty far-fetched.
ALLYN: Far-fetched to Wu, but the Supreme Court sees it differently. In a recent case involving the tech lobbyist group NetChoice, the court ruled that social media companies are protected by the First Amendment when they write the rules for their platforms. In other words, when Meta decides what you see on your Instagram feed or when Elon Musk decides what you see on X, that is a type of free expression. Daphne Keller is a former general counsel at Google.
DAPHNE KELLER: There's a lot of focus this year on platforms saying, hey, we have free speech rights, and laws are violating our speech rights because they won on that issue in the Supreme Court this year.
ALLYN: Keller says this is a shift. For decades, internet companies used a powerful legal shield known as Section 230 to fend off just about any kind of lawsuit of platform would face. It says tech companies can't be held responsible for what users post to their sites. As a result, lots of lawsuits against social media sites ended quickly, Keller says.
KELLER: That determined the outcome of so many cases for years and years. And so there just wasn't a reason for U.S. courts to look at the First Amendment issues that closely until recently.
ALLYN: And the reason why U.S. courts are looking at First Amendment issues now in tech is because state and federal governments are trying to rein in harmful content on social media. Evelyn Douek has been watching the proposals. She studies online speech at Stanford Law School.
EVELYN DOUEK: They're making the argument that, just like corporations have the right to speak and the First Amendment protects their right to speak. It also protects their right to curate other people's fee.
ALLYN: That argument's being tested right now as the tech industry challenges laws over everything from data collection to ad targeting. If they succeed, it could give the tech industry momentum to push back against any type of future regulation. Bobby Allyn, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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