Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody is calling on the U.S. Supreme Court to determine the constitutionality of a 2021 Florida law limiting the ability of social media giants such as Facebook and Twitter to filter user comments.
Moody filed the petition Sept. 21 in the wake of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals finding Florida’s Senate Bill 7072 violates the First Amendment. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, however, upheld a Texas law that is similar to Florida’s.
In its petition to the high court, Florida argues that social media companies have become the “modern public square” and that Florida’s SB 7072 is needed to combat large-scale censorship of opinions by the tech giants.
“Under the 11th Circuit’s reasoning, social-media behemoths have a First Amendment right to cut any person out of the modern town square, for any reason, even when they do not follow their own rules or otherwise act in bad faith,” Florida’s petition states. “That ruling strips states of their historic power to protect their citizens’ access to information, implicating questions of nationwide importance.”
But the tech trade group NetChoice views the Florida tech restrictions as interference in companies’ rights to remove content from their platforms that they don’t want. In essence, the law creates a form of government-mandated expression in violation of the First Amendment, according to NetChoice.
“It’s a really simple issue: Do we want the state to be able to force companies to host content they don’t want?” Carl Szabo, NetChoice’s vice president and general counsel, told the Florida Record in an email. “And we’re not just talking about political content. We’re talking about lawful but awful content, like terrorist recruitment, child predation and porn.”
The First Amendment shields both people and private businesses from such government-mandated speech, Szabo said. He suggested that the situation would be similar to going to a Chipotle outlet and requiring the Mexican restaurant to serve hamburgers because more people prefer burgers over tacos and burritos.
Groups representing tech companies, however, support having the U.S. Supreme Court resolve the debate over state regulation of tech companies.
“With state legislatures considering a greater role for governments in online speech, the question of whether a government can compel social media services to disseminate content violating their policies is destined for the Supreme Court,” Matt Schruers, president of the Computer & Communications Industry Association, said in a prepared statement.