Supreme Court will review GOP-led social media laws in Texas, Florida

The political fight over speech on social media is officially heading to the Supreme Court.

On Friday, the justices said they will take up two cases that have become flashpoints for the argument over Big Tech’s efforts to police speech online. The cases challenge Florida and Texas laws, where Republican-led legislatures have told social media companies they can’t remove content based on users’ viewpoints and can’t ban politicians, like former President Donald Trump, from the platforms.

Two federal courts have already ruled in different ways on this: The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the Texas law, while the 11th Circuit found Florida’s largely violated the First Amendment. The 11th Circuit did uphold a key provision requiring companies to clearly post their content moderation rules.

The Republican-led Texas and Florida laws are reactions to the power that lawmakers say social media platforms have over political discourse online, with conservatives claiming their content gets disproportionately removed compared with their left-leaning counterparts. The laws came in the wake of the 2020 presidential election, when major platforms banned Trump for violating their policies against incitement of violence related to his posts during the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

The cases likely won’t be heard until next year, and both laws are currently blocked from going into effect. Texas’ law restricts social media sites from removing content based on users’ viewpoints and Florida’s law stops platforms from banning politicians and candidates from their services.

The cases were brought by two tech lobbying groups: NetChoice and Computer and Communications Industry Association, which represent social platforms like Meta and Google. They claim the laws violate platforms’ First Amendment rights to moderate and edit content on their sites, meaning they would be forced to allow speech that violates their own policies against violent and extremist content.

The court limited its consideration of the cases to the laws’ restrictions on the platforms’ content-moderation policies and requirements to notify users when their posts are taken down. The justices won’t address whether the laws targeted the companies because they discriminated based on political views or whether the laws’ requirements for companies to publish their content moderation rules violate companies’ free speech rights.

Chris Marchese, NetChoice’s litigation director, said social media companies have a First Amendment right to host, curate and share content as they see fit. “The internet is a vital platform for free expression, and it must remain free from government censorship,” he said in a statement.

Similarly, CCIA President Matt Schruers, said in a statement that “telling private websites they must give equal treatment to extremist hate isn’t just unwise, it is unconstitutional, and we look forward to demonstrating that to the Court.”

A spokesperson for Florida said the state looks forward to defending its law at the Supreme Court. The offices of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton did not immediately respond to a request for comment.