The case of NetChoice vs. Paxton posed an early Supreme Court test of whether conservative states may regulate what appears on social media platforms. The answer so far is no.
Lawyers for the social media platforms appealed directly to the Supreme Court. They sought an order to put the law on hold while the legal challenges proceeded in the lower courts.
They argued the Texas law is unconstitutional because it gets the 1st Amendment backward. As usually understood, the 1st Amendment’s guarantee of “freedom of speech” prohibits the government from regulating speech or censoring the publishing of views and opinions.
Lawyers for the tech lobbying group NetChoice called the court’s intervention “welcome news.” Chris Marchese, counsel for the group, called the Texas law “a constitutional trainwreck…. We are relieved that the 1st Amendment, open internet and the users who rely on it remain protected from Texas’s unconstitutional overreach.”