On Monday, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case concerning laws passed in Florida and Texas over whether state governments are allowed to create rules to address social media companies’ alleged censorship of conservative viewpoints on their platforms. The social media companies argued that the state laws were prompted by conservative-led complaints over censorship and violated free speech protected by the First Amendment.
According to Chief Justice Roberts, a key question for the Court to consider is “whether the government or social media companies have the power to decide which voices are heard on a particular platform.” In this case, the High Court’s decision could address new dilemmas posed by public discourse taking place online as the Court grapples with the scope and meaning of free speech as it relates to technology companies’ control of their platforms. Let’s get into the details.
Background
The social media cases currently before the Supreme Court (Moody v. NetChoice and NetChoice v. Paxton) concern state laws in Florida and Texas that attempt to prevent social media companies from policing their platforms. According to reporting by the NY Times, “after former President Donald Trump was barred from Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube ‘in the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021 riots at the Capitol, Florida made it illegal for technology companies to ban from their sites a candidate for office in the state. Texas later passed its own law prohibiting platforms from taking down political content.”
In response to the state laws, NetChoice and the Computer & Communications Industry Association (two major tech industry groups) sued to block the new laws from taking effect. The groups argued that social media tech companies “have the right to make decisions about their own platforms under the First Amendment,” and the Florida and Texas laws violate free speech, comparing their predicament to how “a newspaper gets to decide what runs in its pages.” The Supreme Court could decide whether state governments may influence or control what content is allowed on these social media platforms –testing the power of social media companies and “potentially reshaping millions of social media feeds by giving the government influence over how and what stays online.”
The current state law in Texas “prohibits social media platforms from taking down content based on the ‘viewpoint’ of the user or expressed in the post,” giving “individuals and the state’s attorney general the right to file lawsuits against the platforms for violations.” In Florida, the law “fines platforms if they permanently ban from their sites a candidate for office in the state” and “forbids the platforms from taking down content from a ‘journalistic enterprise’ and requires the companies to be upfront about their rules for moderating content.”
Supreme Court Weighs in During Oral Arguments
The Supreme Court expressed skepticism of Florida and Texas’ attempts to regulate speech on social media platforms. Legal experts believe the pair of cases before the court are “the most important First Amendment cases in a generation.”
To some, questions posed by several of the justices “seemed to side with a key argument from the social media platforms: that decades of free speech jurisprudence mean government officials cannot compel people or businesses, including social media giants, to speak.”
According to reporting by the NY Times, “the court’s three most conservative members –justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito Jr., and Neil M. Gorsuch –seemed sympathetic to the state laws, all three said phrases like ‘content moderation’ were euphemisms for censorship.”
The oral arguments lasted over four hours, and the justices “expressed concern that the laws could undermine the editorial discretion of the platforms in violation of free speech protections.” However, the justices also “indicated they might permit the laws to regulate certain non-expressive internet services such as the provision of email, direct messaging or car-sharing.”
What Are the Broader Implications?
Currently, social media platforms decide what content they allow and disallow on their websites. Companies such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snap, YouTube, and X (formally Twitter) have policed themselves –setting their own policies or ‘community guidelines’ “for what users are allowed to say while the government has taken a hands-off approach.” However, the Supreme Court’s decision in this case could ultimately reshape the nature of speech on the Internet and how it is regulated. If the Court decides in favor of the states, social media platforms could be forced to carry content that goes against their company policies–content that could foster and promote hate speech and the spread of misinformation.
If Supreme Court decides that the Texas and Florida laws are unconstitutional and violate First Amendment rights of tech companies, it may be seen as the Court upholding the “status quo: “Platforms, not anybody else, will determine what speech gets to stay online.” If the Court sides with the states, this could fundamentally alter how speech is regulated online. It may allow social media platforms to exhibit hate speech and misinformation from their users, potentially facilitating real-world harm from online posts. The Court could also send the cases back down to the lower state courts for further litigation. No matter the outcome, the cases before the Court reflect a growing discontent in the country over the power of social media companies and whether they or the states should be responsible for regulating online content on social media platforms.
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Sources
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/02/26/us/supreme-court-arguments-social-media
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/26/us/politics/supreme-court-social-media-texas-florida.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/25/technology/free-speech-social-media-laws.html
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/feb/26/social-media-moderation-us-supreme-court-case
https://www.npr.org/2024/02/26/1233506273/supreme-court-social-media-laws
Music: Disruptor’s Dance by Anka Mason
Blog Narration: Anka Mason
