Visitors tour the Supreme Court in Washington, Monday, Sept. 25, 2023. The new term of the high court begins Monday, Oct. 2.
Tech industry groups, whose members include Facebook and Google’s YouTube, asked the court to block Texas and Florida laws passed in 2021 that regulate companies’ content-moderation policies. The companies say the measures are unconstitutional and conflict with the First Amendment by stripping private companies of the right to choose what to publish on their platforms.
As Congress has remained deadlocked on those issues, states are playing a larger role in governing digital privacy, artificial intelligence and social media. Democrats largely have argued that the companies are not doing enough to root out hate speech and other harmful content online, and they have passed laws in California and New York to force greater transparency through their content rules.
“And especially because the covered platforms’ only products are displays of expressive content, a government requirement that they display different content - for example, by including content they wish to exclude or organizing content in a different way - plainly implicates the First Amendment.” Last spring, in a 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court prevented the Texas law from taking effect while the litigation continues.