Joe Biden Asks US Supreme Court to Review Social Media Laws in Texas and Florida

JAKARTA - President Joe Biden's administration is pressing the United States Supreme Court to review dispute cases over Republican-backed laws in Texas and Florida. The law is said to reduce the efforts of social media companies to limit content deemed inappropriate on their platforms.

Both states labeled the action unlawful censorship.

The judges are considering reviewing two cases involving challenges to state laws filed by technology industry groups, including NetChoice, whose members include Meta Platforms Inc, Alphabet Inc, and X, formerly known as Twitter.

Supporters of the law, which was passed in 2021, argue that social media platforms have silenced conservative voices, while content moderation advocates argue the need to stop the spread of misinformation and advocacy for extremist causes.

Florida is seeking to revive its law after lower courts largely rejected it, while industry groups appealed a lower court decision in favor of the Texas law, which was blocked by the Supreme Court in the early stages of the case.

Asked to provide views on the dispute, the Justice Department said Monday August 14 that the cases deserve review because the law overrides platform rights under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, which protects free speech.

"When a social media platform selects, edits, and composes speech by a third party for presentation to the public, it is engaging in activities protected by the First Amendment," the Justice Department said in a written text.

The cases will test the argument put forward by industry groups that the First Amendment protects platforms' editorial discretion and prohibits governments from coercing them to publish content they don't want.

The companies have said that without editorial discretion, their websites would be flooded with spam, bullying, extremism and hate speech.

Florida law requires major platforms to "hold some speech they may not otherwise wish to accommodate" by disclosing censorship rules and prohibiting the banning of any political candidate. Texas law prohibits user censorship based on "views".