WASHINGTON—The U.S. Supreme Court today vacated the lower courts’ rulings in the Florida and Texas legal challenges to laws limiting the power of the largest social media companies to moderate and curate speech on their platforms and require the companies to disclose certain information to the public. In December 2023, the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University filed an amicus brief with the Court, urging it to reject the “extreme” arguments advanced by the platforms and the states, and arguing that, while the First Amendment protects platforms’ editorial decisions, it also leaves space for carefully drawn regulation that serves democratic values.

The following can be attributed to Jameel Jaffer, executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute.

“This is a careful and considered ruling that decisively rejects the broadest arguments made by the states and the social media platforms. It properly recognizes that platforms are ‘editors’ under the First Amendment, but it also dismisses, for good reasons, the argument that regulation in this sphere is categorically unconstitutional. The social media companies asked for a sweeping ruling that would have placed their business models beyond the reach of regulation. The states asked for a ruling that would have given them immense power to manipulate and control public discourse online. The Court was entirely right to reject these requests, both of which would have done real harm to our democracy.”

Read today’s decision here.

Read more about Moody v. NetChoice and NetChoice v. Paxton here.

Lawyers on the Knight Institute’s brief include, in addition to Jaffer, Scott Wilkens, Alex Abdo, Ramya Krishnan, and Hannah Vester.

For more information, contact: Adriana Lamirande, [email protected].