The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to rule on a Texas social media ban and sent it back to a lower court.We’re testing using AI-powered tools to provide an audio version of this story. While this audio recording is machine-generated, the story was written by human journalists.The U.S. Supreme Court sent the legal challenge to a Texas social media law back to a lower court, sidestepping a landmark ruling for now.
Writing for the majority, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan said neither court had fully considered how far the Florida and Texas laws could reach. In a Monday morning statement, CCIA President Matt Schruers said he was pleased that the court seemed to recognize the First Amendment challenges in Texas and Florida’s social media laws.
While both laws were passed in response to perceived bias, social media companies refute claims of removing content or blocking users due to their viewpoints. They do enforce policies against explicitly graphic content, bullying, hate speech, and dangerous misinformation. “The importance of social media platforms to free speech online cannot be overstated, as the Supreme Court has said before, that they are the modern public square,” he said. “There is so much at stake when the government tries to regulate free speech online. And that's why these cases are so important.
Oral arguments in the case mainly centered around the content-moderation restrictions. The ruling creates a previously missing legal framework for the treatment of social media in matters surrounding moderation and freedom of speech.