The U.S. Supreme Court sent the case back to lower courts on Monday, May 1er July, the review of two laws passed by Texas and Florida prohibiting social networks from blocking users, leaving them suspended for the time being.
The case, which was the most important on the Court’s agenda this session in terms of freedom of expression, concerns laws adopted in 2021 by these two states. They aim to curb what Republican elected officials consider to be a “censorship” conservative views, which they regularly accuse internet giants of. These texts were voted in response to the exclusion of the outgoing Republican president, Donald Trump, from the main platforms, notably Facebook and Twitter, following the storming of the Capitol by hundreds of his supporters on January 6, 2021.
The first law, passed in Texas, prohibits social networks with more than 50 million monthly active users from blocking, deleting or “demonetize” content based on the ideas expressed by the user. The other text, in Florida, prohibits any intervention by major social networks on the publications of political candidates or“journalistic enterprises”. Both texts also require platforms to provide a “individualized explanation” to the user when they remove one of their publications.
Tech lobbyists appeal
The ruling by the conservative-majority Supreme Court means that the two laws still cannot be enforced. Federal courts had issued conflicting rulings, but the Supreme Court said they did not “conducts an appropriate analysis” of the “challenges” related to the First Amendment of the Constitution, guaranteeing freedom of expression.
The NetChoice association, representing Internet companies, and the Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA), a lobby group for tech giants, had challenged the laws of the two states in court, notably on the grounds that content moderation fell under the First Amendment.
The Supreme Court’s decision was welcomed by the CCIA. “There is nothing more Orwellian than a government trying to dictate what gets broadcast, whether it’s a newspaper or a social network.”its president, Matt Schruers, said in a statement. “We look forward to continuing to defend the First Amendment when these cases return to the lower courts in Florida and Texas.” Both states justify their respective legislation by the importance of social networks, which have become “the agora of modern times”.
The ruling is part of a series of lawsuits launched by American conservatives, who are trying to equate the moderation of online platforms with censorship. On June 26, the Supreme Court sided with the Biden administration in another case, which pitted it against two other American states, Louisiana and Missouri, as well as five private individuals. The plaintiffs considered that the injunctions of the White House or federal agencies, such as the FBI, to social media owners to remove content related to the Covid-19 pandemic and the American elections from their platforms were contrary to freedom of expression. In this case, the Supreme Court ruled that the moderation of publications on social networks was not contrary to the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, which guarantees freedom of expression.