Ben Sperry on the NetChoice Cases

ICLE Senior Scholar Ben Sperry was cited by Disruptive Competition Project in a blog post about the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent NetChoice v. Paxton and Moody v. NetChoice cases. You can read the full piece here.

Ben Sperry, Senior Scholar at the International Center for Law & Economics, focused on the multiple invocations of George Orwell and his dystopian novel 1984 during oral argument. Sperry stated that certain questions from Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas appeared to suggest that they believe social-media companies do engage in censorship, but they are confusing the right of private actors to set rules for their property with government oppression. Sperry rebutted the Justices’ line of logic, commenting: “Social-media companies can kick you off their platform or restrict your ability to post, but that’s about it. They can’t put you in jail. However much social media is the “modern public square,” it remains private property, and they have the right to exercise editorial discretion. The only thing Orwellian is to conflate this obvious distinction.”