Supreme Court Strikes Down Anti-Censorship Social Media Laws In Win For Tech Platforms

The ruling preserves the ability of social media companies to moderate the content posted on their platforms.

The Supreme Court struck down two laws passed by Republican statehouses meant to curb perceived censorship by social media platforms on Monday.

The court ruled in the twin cases of Moody v. NetChoice and NetChoice v. Paxton that anti-censorship laws passed in Florida and Texas violated the First Amendment rights of social media platforms by limiting their ability to exercise editorial judgment over what content users shared.

The majority ruling, written by Justice Elena Kagan, sent both decisions back to the lower courts, and was joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett, and Chief Justice John Roberts. Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch concurred in separate opinions.

At issue were two laws passed by Republicans in 2021 in response to the perception among conservatives that their views were being censored by big social media platforms like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter (now X) and other sites. The laws aimed to block digital platforms from banning, removing or hiding content based on the political viewpoint expressed.

NetChoice, a lobbying group for the tech industry, sued to overturn the laws by arguing that platforms have a First Amendment right to control the content posted by users. The lobbying group claimed that content moderation decisions made by platforms are no different from the “editorial discretion” exercised by newspapers when they determine what stories or editorials to run and where to place them.