WASHINGTON—The U.S. Supreme Court has remanded the cases of NetChoice v. Paxton and Moody v. NetChoice, brought by the tech industry against Florida and Texas, back to the lower courts. These cases involve efforts by both states to address social media censorship concerns.
Daniel Cochrane, senior research associate at The Heritage Foundation’s Tech Policy Center, issued a statement regarding the decision:
“The Supreme Court’s decision gives Florida and Texas the opportunity to show how Big Tech platforms are much more akin to common carriers than newspapers and how their opaque, algorithmically mediated censorship is distinguishable from expressive activity protected by the First Amendment.
“It also underscores the urgent need to revisit Section 230 protections for Big Tech platforms that engage in bad faith censorship and for policies that prioritize robust platform transparency, specifically around politically driven algorithmic interventions and content moderation decisions.”
The Heritage Foundation expressed its continued support for these states in their efforts to prohibit what they describe as censorship of American citizens on social media platforms.