Texas House Bill 20
2021 law that imposes censorship limitations on websites active in Texas
An Act Relating to censorship of or certain other interference with digital expression, including expression on social media platforms or through electronic mail messages, also known as Texas House Bill 20 (HB20), is a Texas anti-deplatforming law enacted on September 9, 2021.
It prohibits large social media platforms from removing, moderating, or labeling posts made by users in the state of Texas based on their "viewpoints", unless considered illegal under federal law or otherwise falling into exempted categories. It also requires them to make various public disclosures relating to their business practices (including the impact of algorithmic and moderation decisions on the content that is delivered to users).
The bill is part of a wider array of Republican-backed legislation seeking to prohibit the censorship of political speech, based on allegations that the moderation policies of large social media platforms are not politically neutral.
It has been challenged in NetChoice, LLC v. Paxton, and is currently the subject of a circuit split between the Fifth Circuit, and a decision by the Eleventh Circuit that struck down a similar bill in the state of Florida. In September 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear NetChoice v. Paxton jointly with NetChoice v. Moody on questions of whether the Florida and Texas state laws are in compliance with the 1st Amendment.
Content
The law applies to "social media platforms" that serve users in the state of Texas, and have more than 50 million monthly active users in the United States.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Texas House Bill 20” is 2021 law that imposes censorship limitations on websites active in Texas. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Texas, House and Bill, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “2021 law that imposes censorship limitations on websites active in Texas” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 21, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q112182534. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2021 and 2023.
Official terminology may obscure informal participation, dissent or communities documented only indirectly. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.
- Event chronology
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Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Texas House Bill 20”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Texas House Bill 20 primary sources, Texas House Bill 20 archive and Texas research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Texas House Bill 20”?
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- Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Texas House Bill 20” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.