Washington — The Supreme Court is hearing arguments Monday in a pair of social media cases that could transform online speech.
The two cases concern disputes surrounding Republican-backed laws in Florida and Texas that aim to restrict social media companies from moderating content, which tech groups representing platforms like Facebook and X, see as a violation of their First Amendment rights.
The laws, both passed in 2021, came in response to what their backers saw as discrimination by social media platforms. The controversy followed social media companies’ decisions to ban former President Donald Trump from their platforms after his handling of the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. (Trump’s accounts were eventually reinstated.)
The states in the case argue that the social media companies should be treated like any business and be restricted from removing posts or banning users from their platforms based upon their views. But the social media companies counter that the laws infringe upon their editorial discretion, arguing that they should be treated more like news outlets.
Both the Biden administration and Trump have weighed in on the dispute, upping the ante on the political implications.
While Trump filed a brief in support of the state laws, arguing that a platform’s “decision to discriminate against a user” is not protected under the Constitution, the Biden administration filed a brief in support of the tech groups. It argued among other things that the high court has “repeatedly held” that the presentation of speech generated by others is protected under the First Amendment, as is often seen among the opinion pages of many newspapers.
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