The U.S. Supreme Court has decided to review state legislation that seeks to alter how social media works in two of the country’s biggest states.
The justices will examine whether recent laws passed in Florida and Texas, which restrict platforms from taking down content and require them to heavily document any reasons for doing so, violate tech companies’ right to free speech, the court said Friday.
The Supreme Court’s ruling, expected sometime in mid-2024, will come as next year’s presidential election heats up, a contest that will inevitably play out in large part online and across social media.
The bills arise from a long-standing Republican belief that sites like Facebook, X and Instagram unfairly remove conservative content. The two trade groups that will represent the industry in the Supreme Court, NetChoice and the Computer & Communications Industry Association, say the First Amendment protects the platforms’ decisions over what content to allow.
Social media regulation has long been discussed in Washington, D.C. but has never really materialized—and has largely been pushed to the side by concerns over artificial intelligence. In a few instances, some Republican-controlled states have come up with their own rules, including Montana’s decision in May to ban TikTok.
