The Supreme Court has sent legal challenges to Florida and Texas social media laws back to lower courts for further analysis, impacting the regulation of content moderation on platforms.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
On July 1, the Supreme Court sent back to lower courts the legal challenges against social media content moderation laws in Florida and Texas. The unanimous decision, authored by Justice Elena Kagan, criticized the lower courts for not conducting proper analyses in the two cases.
This marks the first time the Supreme Court reviewed state laws designating social media companies as “common carriers,” potentially subjecting them to utility-style regulations and prohibiting political viewpoint discrimination.
The Florida case, Moody v. NetChoice LLC, and the Texas case, NetChoice LLC v. Paxton, were closely monitored by both conservatives and liberals. At the core of the issue is balancing the First Amendment rights of Americans to freely express themselves online with the rights of social media platforms to exercise editorial control over hosted content.
Conservatives argue that platforms have become the modern town square, thus warranting constitutional speech protections. They point to incidents such as the January 2021 ban of President Donald Trump, the suppression of a New York Post article on Hunter Biden’s laptop, and censorship of COVID-19 discourse as examples of biased content moderation.
Liberals, however, contend that platforms are not stringent enough in addressing hate speech and misinformation, which they view as significant societal issues.
The Supreme Court’s decision followed nearly four hours of oral arguments heard on February 26. NetChoice, representing social media companies, challenged Florida’s law that imposes fines for deplatforming political candidates and requires consistent moderation rule enforcement. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit had partially struck down this law, emphasizing that private actors, including large platforms, have First Amendment rights protecting their editorial judgments.
Conversely, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit upheld a Texas anti-deplatforming law, dismissing the notion that corporations have an unrestricted First Amendment right to censor user speech. Both state laws mandate platforms to explain their content moderation decisions, a requirement viewed by the platforms as excessively burdensome.
The Supreme Court’s remand means the lower courts must revisit these cases and conduct more thorough analyses, which could have significant implications for the regulation of social media platforms and content moderation practices. For the full text of the Supreme Court’s decision, see the official ruling.