Plus: The Supreme Court in cyberspace, what’s up with Web3, and ghost town resurrections.
—clerked for Alito.) Alito’s dissent claimed that he hadn’t formed a view on the “novel legal questions” involved , but wanted to defer to Texas and let the law take effect before the whole court decides on the case. When and if the Supreme Court does consider the case, it looks like the three dissenters will support the Texas law.
So what about the other two justices who typically vote with that trio? In this first go-round, Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh voted with the majority to send the case back to the Fifth Circuit. This would seem to indicate, but doesn’t mean for sure, that they agree the law tramples on the First Amendment. Will they jump sides and join their conservative colleagues, unleashing online anarchy? We’ve been through too many “it can’t happen here” surprises to rule it out.
No one knew what to expect when the Supreme Court took its first shot at the new world of cyberspace last Wednesday, hearing arguments in a case that may well set parameters for free speech in the next century. But almost everyone agreed on one thing: The Supremes, at the average age of 62, would be aliens to the world of geekdom.