Texas and Florida Impose New Laws Restricting Social Media
Eric Jia • March 9, 2024
Recently, the US Supreme Court spent around four hours deliberating over a pair of unique lawsuits challenging laws in Texas and Florida concerning social media moderation. These legal battles may possibly define the extent to which the First Amendment is applied in an increasingly digital landscape.
What are the two laws?
Both the Texas law and Florida law place limitations on content moderation in social media platforms. In Texas, the law stipulates that companies with over 50 million monthly users can’t purposefully censor content because of their writer’s viewpoint. For instance, posts expressing opinions such as “pineapples belong on pizza” can’t be struck down just because the platform’s operators disagree with the sentiment. Florida’s law is similar but a bit more specific. Companies are prohibited from banning political candidates. Notably, these laws, especially the Florida one, seem to have risen in response to the suspension of Donald Trump’s social media accounts following the Jan. 6 attack. Given the predominantly Republican leaning of both states, it is understandable that they would seek to challenge the suspension of the former president’s account.
Why are companies saying that these laws are unconstitutional?
The bulk of the argument centers around comparing social media platforms to newspapers. Newspapers are allowed to freely publish any story they choose, technically giving them the right to decide which stories to not publish. A similar logic is applied to social media companies. Instead of censoring their users, these companies are deciding which “stories” get to be told and which stories are cut.
On the other side of the argument, however, states that social media is essentially equivalent to a mailman. Like mail services or telecommunication providers, companies are required to ensure that their users’ messages are transmitted in its entirety. These companies are obligated to send messages without any interference, much like how a mailman delivers letters indiscriminately.
Social media companies also bring up the point that without these censors in place, these platforms would be filled with scams, extremists, or bullying. In order to protect all their users, these companies believe a “block” or “remove” feature is best.
What do the justices think?
So far? It seems pretty conflicted. While most of them agree that the laws do present challenges to the freedom of speech, most of them also agree that it would be difficult to strike down the laws. The problem is also more nuanced than at first glance. For companies that do provide direct messaging, these laws are 100% legal. Direct messaging should be treated like mail, and thus doesn’t count as “speech”. A few justices have stated that this case should be kicked back to the lower courts, allowing for more discussion time. Even the Biden Administration has given their own two cents on this situation: they are squarely against the laws. Without content moderation, companies would be forced to present objectionable content, violating the platform’s freedom of speech.
No matter the ruling, this case will have a significant impact on how social media presents information. The ruling is expected to be given near the end of June. And with it, it may change the role of social media facilitating discourse forever.