The Supreme Court is considering the validity of two state laws that allows the government to dictate what speech and viewpoints online social media service must publish. The laws enacted by Texas and Florida violate the First Amendment and will lead to greater censorship of users' speech and the loss of diverse online forums as platforms face a storm of lawsuits.

Texas HB 20 prohibits Twitter, Facebook, and other big social media platforms from “censor[ing] a user, a users’ expression or a users’ ability to receive the expression of another person” based on the speaker’s viewpoint, whether expressed on or off the site, which covers nearly all common content moderation practices. It allows Texas residents or the state attorney general to sue platforms for any kind of negative treatment to a user or a post, including take down and down-ranking posts, and suspending, shadowing, or canceling accounts.

The Florida law requires that social media sites grant special treatment to electoral candidates and “journalistic enterprises” and not apply their regular editorial practices to them, even if they violate the platforms' rules. The law gives preferential treatment to political candidates, preventing publishers at any point before an election from canceling their accounts or downgrading their posts or posts about them, giving them free rein to spread misinformation or post about content outside the site’s subject matter focus. Users not running for office, meanwhile, enjoy no similar privilege.

Federal district courts enjoined both laws from being enforced. A federal appellate court affirmed the injunction against the Florida law, while a separate appellate court reversed the injunction against the Texas law. The Supreme Court later put the Texas law back on hold while it considered reviewing the merits.

The Supreme Court heard arguments in both cases in early 2024.