Supreme Court Bypasses Ruling on Texas and Florida Tech Laws

Supreme Court Bypasses Ruling on Texas and Florida Tech Laws

Supreme Court ruling tech laws on Monday, the Supreme Court bypassed a ruling on the legality of Texas and Florida laws aimed at regulating tech platform content moderation. Instead, the Court remanded the legal disputes, supported by social-media companies, back to lower courts for further argumentation.

Justice Elena Kagan, in an opinion, stated that the lower courts had inadequately examined the scope of the Texas and Florida laws. The parties have not briefed the critical issues here, and the record is underdeveloped, Kagan wrote.

Court Opinions and Divisions

All justices agreed that lower courts must further litigate the legal challenges to the two laws. Yet, they split on NetChoice’s arguments, a trade association including Alphabet’s Google and Meta Platforms, Facebook’s parent company.

Kagan’s opinion, supported by five other justices, expressed skepticism about Texas’ and Florida’s regulations. She endorsed NetChoice’s primary argument that social-media platforms like Facebook possess a First Amendment right to decide the content they host.

Three conservative justices, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch, criticized NetChoice. They argued the trade group lacked essential facts to fully invalidate the state laws.

Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch critique NetChoice, arguing it lacks essential facts for full state law invalidation, acording to Barron’s Subscription.

Laws and Controversies

In 2021, GOP-led legislatures in Florida and Texas enacted these laws amid perceived anti-conservative bias from major tech platforms like Facebook, YouTube, and X (formerly Twitter). The companies deny allegations of suppressing conservative viewpoints.

Both states implemented these measures after Twitter suspended former President Donald Trump’s account following the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack by his supporters, citing concerns that he might incite further violence.

“When you de-platform the president of the United States but you let Ayatollah Khamenei talk about killing Jews, that is wrong,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis stated during a bill-signing event.


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Specifics of the Laws

Florida’s law requires platforms to enforce content-moderation policies consistently. It specifically forbids de-platforming political candidates and censoring journalistic enterprises based on their reporting.

The expanded Texas law prohibits platforms from censoring content based on viewpoint, emphasizing free expression protection. However, tech companies can still uniformly censor certain content categories, such as threats of violence. Overall, the aim is to strike a balance between free speech and platform responsibilities.

The state law in Texas enables residents and businesses to sue platforms for alleged violations and request content restoration. Plaintiffs can seek court orders for these actions but cannot claim monetary damages, focusing instead on attorney’s fees. The law assigns enforcement authority over these matters to the Texas attorney general.

Legal Challenges

NetChoice and the Computer & Communications Industry Association, two trade associations representing major tech companies, sued to stop the enforcement of the laws, condemning them as unconstitutional attacks on their members’ business practices and First Amendment rights.

A federal judge swiftly blocked Florida’s law for being vague and unclear in its language. An appeals court panel later agreed that the state unlawfully meddled with companies’ editorial discretion. However, it upheld some parts, like mandating companies to provide data access to banned users for 60 days.

A different appeals court upheld the Texas law, creating a split in the lower courts. That decision, penned by a Trump appointee, stated that corporations did not have a blanket First Amendment right to censor public speech.

The Supreme Court intervened with a brief written order that kept the Texas law on hold while the litigation proceeded.


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