Supreme Court Bypasses Decision on Florida, Texas Social Media Laws, 1st Amendment

The Supreme Court on Monday sidestepped the question of whether Florida and Texas laws limiting how social media companies regulate content violate the First Amendment, sending the issue back to lower courts for further consideration.

The opinion was written by Justice Elena Kagan.

The state measures aim to limit how social media giants like Facebook, Instagram and X can manage user accounts and news feeds on their platforms. They come amid concerns from conservatives that the platforms are censoring views on their sites based on political considerations.

Federal appeals courts are split on the issue: one struck down the Florida law as a violation of the First Amendment, the other upheld the Texas law as permissible government intervention.

The Supreme Court reversed those judgments and remanded the cases because, it said, neither court “conducted a proper analysis of the First Amendment challenges to Florida and Texas laws governing large Internet platforms.”

The Supreme Court has said that lower courts must first analyze the scope of state laws and then determine whether any application of the law conflicts with the First Amendment.

“In summary, there is much work to be done on both of these cases,” Justice Kagan wrote.

“But this work must be done in a manner consistent with the First Amendment, which does not apply when social media is involved,” she added.

In another major social media case this quarter, the justices rejected a challenge to the Biden administration’s communication with the companies about misinformation on their platforms about COVID-19 and the 2020 election.

Republican-led states and five individual users argued that the government’s conduct amounted to unlawful coercion, while the administration argued that its contacts with the companies were aimed at protecting national security and public health.

The judges dismissed the complaint, saying the plaintiffs lacked standing to sue the government because they could not show that the administration’s outreach directly led to censorship of their views online.