State social media laws aimed at protecting conservative users remain blocked, Supreme Court says

The Supreme Court on Monday declined to settle the major constitutional questions raised in a blockbuster dispute over laws approved in Texas and Florida intended to protect conservative viewpoints on social media, meaning the laws will remain blocked for now while lower courts continue to sort out the constitutional questions involved.

The Supreme Court on Monday declined to settle the major constitutional questions raised in a blockbuster dispute over laws approved in Texas and Florida intended to protect conservative viewpoints on social media, meaning the laws will remain blocked for now while lower courts continue to sort out the constitutional questions involved. The decision delays a final ruling on whether it is unconstitutional for states to pass laws preventing online platforms from moderating their own websites. It also reflects some of the difficulty the justices faced in trying to understand the reach of the Florida and Texas laws, which proponents said would help guarantee the freedom of internet users’ speech but that opponents said infringed on platforms’ own First Amendment rights and would make social media an unworkable mess. Neither of the two appeals courts that produced the cases before the justices looked at the First Amendment issues involved correctly, wrote Justice Elena Kagan in an opinion joined in full by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. Kagan’s opinion, however, reserved special criticism for the US 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, saying that in ruling for the state of Texas, that appeals court showed a “serious misunderstanding of First Amendment precedent and principle.” This story is breaking and will be updated.