Supreme Court Won’t Rule On The Freedom Of Speech On Tech Platforms

(PatriotPostNews.com) — A high-profile case related to free speech and social media has been rejected by the federal Supreme Court.

The nation’s highest court refused to rule on the cases—which involve accusations that social media feeds and algorithms are biased against politically conservative users—and instead sent the disputes back to the appeals courts.

Additionally, the Supreme Court instructed the lower courts to take a closer look at the legal application of policy that reaches further than curated feeds. It is also recommended to consider how existing laws may impact other features like direct messaging.

Previously, the states of Florida and Texas enacted laws that restricted the moderation of social media content and sorting via algorithms. The Supreme Court determined in October 2023 that the laws were established in response to the perceived discrimination pertaining to feeds being “skewed against politically conservative voices.”

The laws also required that, if posts are flagged as violating the rules of a platform’s content moderation, a detailed explanation as to how the content broke the guidelines must be shared via notification. A lawsuit was then filed by NetChoice, a trade association, which challenged both laws.

The Eleventh Circuit Court maintained an injunction against Florida’s law, which was initially imparted by district courts. In Texas, though, the Fifth Circuit Court reversed the injunction. The same court determined that social media organizations qualify as “common carriers,” like service providers for mobile phones, meaning they are not permitted to discriminate against users.

With the Supreme Court’s remanding of the cases, it did not officially make a ruling on the disputes but rather recommended how lower courts should hear the cases as they move forward with another round of the legal process.

This is not the first time that the Court has maintained that the federal government should not determine the proper balance of personal citizen expression, opting instead to allow organizations and their users to settle such matters and avoid infringing upon free speech rights.