Conservatives are seeking new ways to limit what has now become a tradition of being kicked out of social media platforms for preaching unacceptable messages.

Texas governor Greg Abbott said Facebook and Twitter are leading a “dangerous movement to silence conservative voices and religious freedoms” as he backed a state bill Friday that would allow any Texans temporarily removed or banned from Facebook or Twitter to sue the social media companies in order to get reinstated, CBS reported.

The bill, introduced earlier this week by Republican state senators, is the latest of more than a dozen efforts that have emerged around the country in recent weeks, following the banning of former President Donald Trump from the two social media platforms in the wake of the January 6 Capitol riot.

At a press conference in Tyler, Texas, Abbott argued that the social media companies have the obligation under a 1996 federal law known as Section 230 to keep their platforms open, and that violations of that law by Facebook, Twitter and others give Texas the right to impose its own state-specific regulations.

“Big tech’s efforts to censor conservative viewpoints is un-American, and we are not going to allow it in the Lone Star State,” Abbott said.

The move will set social media platforms up for a fresh dilemma of section 230 and state law.

CBS reported that Texas state Senator Bryan Hughes, who sponsored the bill and spoke along with Abbott, said that all the state wanted to do was protect the freedoms of its citizens. “We don’t allow a cable company to cut off your television because of your religion,” Hughes offered as a justification for the proposed law.

A spokesperson for Facebook did not return a request for comment by CBS MoneyWatch. In the past, Facebook and other social media companies have said they have the right to monitor and ban users on their platforms when those users post speech that promotes violence.

Many technology and media experts agree. Industry group TechNet in a statement said the Texas bill would lead to numerous unintended negative consequences, including exposing children to harmful content.

“Every day, millions of pieces of digital content are posted that show the exploitation of children, bullying, harassment, pornography and spam,” TechNet said. “This bill not only recklessly encourages companies to leave objectionable content in the public eye, but also creates a culture that supports frivolous lawsuits against American companies.”

Sharon Bradford Franklin, the policy director of think tank New America’s Open Technology Institute, said Abbott “does not have a correct understanding” of federal regulations. She said, in fact, that Section 230 gives social media platforms, and all websites, the ability to decide what speech they want to host and what speech they want to take down.

While states can impose their own privacy laws on social media platforms, they are barred by federal law from enacting their own laws policing content on the platforms, Franklin added. “If a law needs to be changed, Texas can’t do it on its own,” she said. “I feel confident that any court would hold that a law passed by a state to regulate content on social media platforms is not allowed.”

Conservatives have long claimed that they are censored on social media websites, even though there is little independent evidence to support that. A study released last month by New York University found no reliable backing for the contention that conservatives are regularly blacklisted on mainstream social media websites.

Nonetheless, conservative censorship complaints have grown louder since Facebook, Twitter and others have sought to limit calls for violence in the wake of the January 6 Capitol riot. This year alone, Republican lawmakers in 20 states have introduced bills that would allow their citizens to sue social media companies if they are “deplatformed,” according to David Horowitz of the Media Coalition, a nonprofit focused on First Amendment issues.

While states are trying to make the case that Facebook should be regulated like a public square, in which all speech is protected, Horowitz believes those states will have a hard time passing that level of regulation on their own. The biggest hurdle: The internet operates across state lines. Any new regulations imposed on Facebook in one state, for instance, would impact the company in another. “There is no way for Texas to guarantee that its rules will govern just Texans,” Horowitz said.

What’s more, Horowitz said, courts have long upheld that business owners have their own First Amendment rights of free speech as well. “If a bookstore doesn’t want to sell a book, the government can’t force it to do so,” said Horowitz. “I think social media platforms have the same rights.”

Donald Trump, while still in the office as president moved to amend section 230, which, in addition to giving social media firms the right to decide what message is allowed on their platforms, protects them from being held accountable for posts made by users.

The move was opposed by Congress and weeks after, Trump was kicked out by major social media platforms following the Capitol insurrection. Ever since then, conservatives have been seeking ways to curtail the power of big tech firms that have limited conservatives’ use of social media platforms to promote ideas deemed immoral.

The Texas bill is thus a new attempt at state level to disrupt the status quo that has taken the megaphone off the mouth of many conservatives.

It is quite disconcerting when you’re misunderstood by your readers. Anytime this happens, you find yourself going through your works over and over again, trying to figure out what could have distorted the meaning you embedded in your message. Maybe you will wonder whether the idioms, sarcasms, ironies and other terms and expressions used figuratively were the culprits. But what if you were still misunderstood despite using simple clear language? Does it mean it is your fault that you were misinterpreted or the fault if from your reader?

Well, that is the challenge faced by every writer. By “writer” here, I mean people that put down their thoughts, opinions, instructions, commands, and ideas in written form. This could be done through SMS, email, social media chats, articles, books, and so on. That is to say that almost everyone must have been misunderstood at a particular point in time. However it is becoming worrisome that lack of comprehension causes people to miss lifetime opportunities, make mistakes or display ignorance. It is also devastating that people are attacked and harmed by their readers, who misinterpreted their message(s). This is why you, as a writer, should always remember that everybody does not have the ability to read and comprehend messages.

Causes of Comprehension Disability

Sometimes writers are the cause of comprehension barriers faced by their readers. This could be as a result of the way they put words together or the type of words they chose. Some writers deliberately create ambiguity in their writings because they wanted to achieve some effects through that. Some erroneously use idioms that mean something different to their readers. But in most cases, lack of textual comprehension is the fault of readers.

• Poor Vocabulary

This is one of the major causes of poor comprehension in many adults. It is made more difficult by the daily invention of new words and giving new meanings to old ones. For instance, as more discoveries and technological inventions are made, more words are released into a language. Hence, the presence of unfamiliar words in writings may prove challenging to some people. This is not to say that a person must be a walking dictionary before he can assimilate meanings from texts. However, knowledge of the basic words used in daily communication can go a long way in making comprehension easier. Hence, writers may need to normalize using simple terms used for daily communication.

• Poor Logical Thinking

People that belong to this group find it difficult to obtain information from texts even though their vocabulary level is high. Those that don’t understand instructions belong to this group. But the major problem with this type of readers surfaces when the need to analyse information from a piece of writing comes up. They usually find it challenging to pick up clues from messages and solve problems with them. Hence, if they constitute a major percentage of your readers, write clearly and extensively to explain your message/instructions. Do not assume they can read in-between the lines.

• Impulsivity

This is the bane of many people, both the old and the young. People in this group are too impatient to read. They scan through messages, pick up a few words, guess the intentions of the writer, and then arrive at a conclusion. Most times, their conclusions are wrong. It is because of people like this that writers have devised skimmer-mode, where they highlight the sections of their works that bore the key messages. Hence, if you need to capture people with this problem, write in short paragraphs and include headings and subheadings.

• Lack of Interest

Many people do not want to read, especially if the topic/theme does not capture their interests. People like this only want to read summaries. If they are forced to read, they will scan through the introduction and conclusion and interpret the writing based on their own conception. To capture these people, make your writings short, say 500 words max. You can also use pictures/images to engage their interest.

• Poor Emotional Intelligence

These are the people that easily flare up for any available reasons. They are easily offended. They don’t differentiate between jokes and serious talks. They also can’t decode figurative languages such as idioms, sarcasm, connotations, and proverbs. These people see things literally and hence misinterpret anything said otherwise. If you want to impress them or avoid their melodrama, avoid any form of embellishment in your writings because they will definitely misinterpret you.

Understanding the type of readers your text might attract gives you a clue on how to write. But if you intentionally twist your works to cause ambiguity, you need to develop tough skin to withstand negative reactions that will come from their misinterpretations. However, it will be good if you can make your writing as clear as possible and still maintain its creativity.