来源：《华盛顿邮报》
原文刊登日期：2022年6月5日
The Supreme Court gave the technology industry a win this past week, but one so narrow that it felt almost like a loss — and raised alarming questions about the future of free-speech protections in the United States.
上周，美国最高法院给了科技行业一场胜利，但这场胜利太小，几乎让人感觉像是一场损失——这也引发了人们对美国未来言论自由保护的担忧。
A 5-to-4 ruling blocked temporarily a Texas law that bars large social media services from removing posts based on the views they express. The outcome is the correct one, but the court’s narrow majority and ongoing litigation on the issue suggest the fight is not over. The legislation in question now awaits a decision on the merits by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit. Considering these ongoing proceedings, and that an 11th Circuit panel recently struck down a similar law passed in Florida, it seems likely that questions about the government’s authority over what tech platforms can do with the content on their sites will soon find their way back to the Supreme Court.
一项5票对4票的裁决暂时阻止了德克萨斯州的一项法律，该法律禁止大型社交媒体服务机构根据帖子表达的观点删除帖子。最高法院的判决结果是正确的，但这个微弱多数胜利和正在就此问题进行的诉讼表明，这场斗争还没有结束。该法案目前正在等待美国第五巡回上诉法院就案情作出裁决。考虑到这些正在进行的诉讼，以及第11巡回上诉法院最近否决了佛罗里达州通过的一项类似法律，关于政府对科技平台如何管理其网站内容的权力的问题似乎很快就会回到最高法院。
These cases would seem to present an ideal opportunity for the court to issue a robust defense of the First Amendment, which should guarantee social media companies freedom from broad government mandates on how they regulate the content they host on their private platforms. But, shockingly, only five justices signaled their willingness to uphold this principle in their preliminary look at the Texas law, and they did not explain their votes. Instead, the dissenters did all the talking, and it was not encouraging. Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., joined in his dissent by Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil M. Gorsuch, discounted the extent to which the First Amendment protections apply to large social media companies. The influence a few firms have over the public square might require some response. Yet infringing on those firms’ right to free expression is not an answer the Constitution permits.
这些案件似乎为最高法院提供了一个理想的机会，可以对《第一修正案》进行强有力的辩护。《第一修正案》应保证社交媒体公司在如何监管其私有平台上托管的内容方面免受政府的广泛强制。但是，令人震惊的是，只有五名大法官在初步审查德克萨斯州法律时表示愿意坚持这一原则，而且他们没有解释自己的投票。相反，异议大法官做了所有的发言，这并不令人鼓舞。大法官塞缪尔·阿利托、大法官克拉伦斯·托马斯和大法官尼尔·M·戈尔索在异议书中认为第一修正案的保护在多大程度上适用于大型社交媒体公司并不重要。需要对一些公司对公共言论平台的影响作出一些回应。然而，侵犯这些公司的言论自由权并不是宪法允许的答案。
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s argument — that social media sites should be classified as common carriers and thereby compelled to host all legal material — is perplexing, given conservatives’ opposition to the same concept when it comes to questions such as net neutrality. He and his allies apparently decided that the technology companies they have accused of liberal bias don’t deserve the same privileges as other corporate actors. But to compel Facebook, Twitter and others to spread hate, harassment, foreign-state propaganda and even white-supremacist manifestos is contrary to this nation’s founding values.
德克萨斯州总检察长肯·帕克斯顿的理由——社交媒体网站应被归类为公共载体，因此必须承载所有合法内容——令人费解，因为同样的概念，在涉及网络中立性等问题时，保守派就反对。他和他的盟友似乎认为，被他们指控存在自由主义偏见的科技公司不应该享有与其他企业一样的特权。但是，强迫Facebook、Twitter和其他平台传播仇恨、骚扰、外国政府的宣传，甚至白人至上主义宣言，都与这个国家的建国价值观相违背。
There’s room for responsible regulation of Internet services. Indeed, there’s even a need for it. Technology companies in their Supreme Court petition asked the justices to go too far in their favor — precluding even reasonable requirements for transparency or appeals processes as they regulate the speech on their sites. But Texas’s effort to dictate to companies what they must and must not allow people to say doesn’t protect free speech. It endangers free expression.
对互联网服务进行负责任的监管是有提高改进空间的。事实上，甚至有必要这样做。科技公司在最高法院的请愿书中极尽要求大法官们偏袒它们——在它们规范其网站上的言论时，甚至排除了对透明度或上诉程序的合理要求。但是德州规定公司必须允许和禁止人们说什么，这并没有保护言论自由。而是危及言论自由。