Two state laws that could change the way social media companies handle content moderation are still in limbo after the Supreme Court overturned earlier rulings and sent the issues to lower courts. 9-0 in Moody v. NetChoice and NetChoice v. PaxtonThe Supreme Court said previous lower court decisions had misjudged the laws’ First Amendment impact.
Disputes stem from two , from Texas and Florida, which sought to impose limits on the ability of social media companies to control content. A Texas law passed in 2021 allows users to sue major social media companies for alleged “censorship” of their political views. Supreme Court law in 2022 after a legal challenge. Meanwhile, the Florida event also passed , tried to fine social media companies that ban politicians. That was the law pending legal challenges.
Both laws were challenged by NetChoice, an industry group representing Meta, Google, X and other big tech companies. NetChoice argued that the laws were unconstitutional and would essentially prevent the big platforms from doing any content moderation. The Biden Administration also opposed both laws. In NetChoice called the decision “a victory for First Amendment rights online.”
In a ruling authored by Justice Elena Kagan, the court said the lower court rulings in both cases “centered on the issue of whether a state law can regulate the content-moderation practices used on Facebook’s News Feed (or its near equivalents).” But, he writes, “they did not address the full range of activities covered by the statutes, nor did they weigh constitutional against unconstitutional practices.”
Essentially, the usually divided court agreed that the laws’ First Amendment implications could broadly affect parts of these sites unaffected by algorithmic sorting or content moderation (such as direct messages) and speech in general. Kagan wrote that this externalities analysis never occurred in the lower courts. The remand order means that a review must be conducted and the case could return to SCOTUS in the future.
“Overall, there is much work to be done below in either case … But that work must be done in a manner consistent with the First Amendment, which does not take a vacation when social media is involved,” Kagan wrote.
