Can government tell Big Tech companies how to edit content and police their platforms? That’s the question before the Supreme Court on Monday in two cases with major First Amendment implications (Moody v. NetChoice and NetChoice v. Paxton).
NetChoice, a tech industry group, is challenging Texas and Florida laws that seek to prevent social-media platforms from silencing conservatives. Republicans are rightly frustrated by censorship that often tilts against conservatives, including us. But the solution to business censorship of conservatives isn’t government censorship of business.
***
The Florida law bans large social-media platforms from removing the accounts of political candidates, or suppressing posts by or about them. Platforms also can’t take “any action to censor, deplatform, or shadow ban a journalistic enterprise based on the content of its publication or broadcast,” and they must apply their standards “in a consistent manner” among their users.
The idea that any state judge could declare a presidential candidate an “insurrectionist,” and thereby exclude him or her from the ballot, is wrong. Obviously, there needs to be a regular procedure to make that determination, and obviously, there can’t be 51 different procedures in all the jurisdictions that send electoral votes to Congress. So, obviously, this is not a matter for the states; it is a matter for the federal government.