Two state laws that could upend the way social media companies handle content moderation are still in limbo after a Supreme Court ruling sent the challenges back to lower courts, vacating previous rulings. In a 9 - 0, the Supreme Court said that earlier rulings in lower courts had not properly evaluated the laws’ impact on the First Amendment., from Texas and Florida, which tried to impose restrictions on social media companies’ ability to moderate content.
Essentially, the usually-divided court agreed that the First Amendment implications of the laws could have broad impacts on parts of these sites unaffected by algorithmic sorting or content moderation as well as on speech in general. Analysis of those externalities, Kagan wrote, simply never occurred in the lower court proceedings. The decision to remand means that analysis should take place, and the case may come back before SCOTUS in the future.
“In sum, there is much work to do below on both these cases … But that work must be done consistent with the First Amendment, which does not go on leave when social media are involved,” Kagan wrote.