Politics

The Biden administration has requested the US Supreme Court review Florida and Texas laws restricting how social media companies like Facebook moderate the content users post on their platforms.

In briefs filed on Monday, the US solicitor general urged the court to take up a pair of lawsuits led by the tech trade group NetChoice. Both Florida and Texas passed laws making it illegal for large social platforms to suspend or punish users, citing long-standing allegations that major platforms are biased against conservatives. A series of temporary injunctions have left the future of these laws in limbo, and Monday’s briefs add new pressure on the Supreme Court to resolve the suits.

“The platforms’ content-moderation activities are protected by the First Amendment, and the content-moderation and individualized-explanation requirements impermissibly burden those protected activities,” the briefs read. “The Court should not, however, take up NetChoice’s separate contentions that the laws’ general-disclosure provisions violate the First Amendment and that the laws were motivated by viewpoint discrimination.” That means it will not support overturning a Florida court decision that allows transparency-focused portions of the rules to stand.