CDT Files Amicus Brief in NetChoice v. Moody and NetChoice v. Paxton, Challenging TX & FL Social Media Laws

CDT filed an amicus brief in NetChoice v. Moody and NetChoice v. Paxton, consolidated cases challenging the Texas and Florida social media laws. After the Eleventh Circuit preliminarily enjoined parts of the Florida law on First Amendment grounds and the Fifth Circuit upheld the Texas law but stayed the enforcement of the law pending appeal, the states appealed to the Supreme Court.

In our amicus brief supporting NetChoice, we describe the process by which platforms create content policies regarding what content is and is not allowed on their services, continuously iterate on those policies, and implement processes to enforce those policies to foster the type of environment they wish to create. We argue that platforms’ content moderation activities are editorial processes deserving of the highest level of First Amendment protection.

We then argue that the provisions of the Texas and Florida laws that would require platforms to change their content moderation rules or continue to host user content that they otherwise would not violate platforms’ First Amendment-protected right to exercise editorial discretion by engaging in content moderation.

Read the full brief.