The Supreme Court said Monday it is postponing for now a ruling on whether social media laws adopted by Florida and Texas violate the First Amendment.
Instead, judges sent those cases to lower courts to consider how those laws would apply in specific situations.
Speaking unanimously on the court, Justice Elena Kagan said lawyers for NetChoice, the group that sued the states, and the lower court judges who have ruled so far made a mistake by focusing broadly on free speech principles. without considering how the laws would apply in different circumstances.
“In short, there is a lot of work to do in both cases, given the apparent nature of NetChoice's challenges. But that work must be done in a manner consistent with the First Amendment, which is not suspended when social media is involved,” he said.
All nine judges agreed with the result.
Monday's decision leaves unresolved whether states can play a role in deciding what appears on popular platforms watched by tens of millions of viewers.
The two largest red states had passed laws to fine and punish platforms like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter (now X) and Instagram for what they said was “censoring” posts that appeal to conservatives.
The Florida and Texas laws under review arose from complaints three years ago that President Trump had been unfairly discriminated against or blocked by social media sites, including Twitter.
In 2021, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed his state’s first law in the country, saying it targeted “Big Tech censors” who “discriminate in favor of Silicon Valley’s dominant ideology.”
The measure, adopted before billionaire Elon Musk bought Twitter and changed its name to X, applies to social media sites with more than $100 million in annual revenue or more than 100 million users.
Authorizes lawsuits for damages for “unfair censorship” and large fines if a social media site “deplatforms” a candidate for public office.
A few months later, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed a somewhat broader bill into law, claiming that “conservative speech” was being threatened. It states that a social media platform with more than 50 million users in the United States “may not censor … or otherwise discriminate against the speech” of users based on their viewpoint.
NetChoice and the Computer and Communications Industry Association filed suit to challenge both laws on free speech grounds, and both laws were put on hold, including by a 5-4 Supreme Court order.
The campaign to restrict social media is intensifying in many states.
Last week, the court, in a 6-3 vote, dismissed a lawsuit brought by Republican state prosecutors who accused the Biden administration of censoring social media.
The administration said it had simply alerted the sites to dangerous misinformation about vaccines and COVID-19. Judge Amy Coney Barrett said state prosecutors failed to show that Facebook and other social media platforms removed posts because the government pressured them to do so.
Last year, the California Legislature adopted a measure to ban online companies from collecting and selling data on children and teens, but it was blocked by a federal judge in San Jose on First Amendment grounds.
