On July 1, 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Moody v. NetChoice, LLC and NetChoice, LLC v. Paxton, marking a significant development in the realm of internet regulation and reinforcing the application of longstanding First Amendment principles to the online world. The cases centered around state laws enacted in 2021 by Florida and Texas, both of which target large social media platforms and internet companies. The laws aim to limit platforms' control over content moderation, including filtering and labeling user-generated content, and mandated detailed explanations for content removal or alteration.

Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati represented trade association Computer & Communications Industry Association (whose members include Facebook, Twitter, Google, and Pinterest), who teamed up with fellow trade association NetChoice in Moody v. NetChoice, LLC, to challenge Florida's law on First Amendment grounds.

Following the federal district courts' preliminary injunctions halting enforcement, conflicting appellate decisions emerged: the Eleventh Circuit upheld Florida’s injunction, recognizing that the First Amendment protects platforms’ exercise of editorial control, while the Fifth Circuit overturned Texas’s injunction, holding that content moderation isn’t protected speech.

Ultimately, the Supreme Court unequivocally embraced the Eleventh Circuit’s application of the First Amendment, holding that “choices about what third-party speech to display and how to display it” are core editorial decisions that receive First Amendment protection. The Fifth Circuit’s opinion, in contrast, “rest[ed] on a serious misunderstanding of First Amendment precedent and principle.” The Court specifically rejected Texas’s interest in enacting the law, recognizing “that it is no job for government to decide what counts as the right balance of private expression—to ‘un-bias’ what it thinks biased, rather than to leave such judgments to speakers and their audiences.”

While the Court remanded the cases to further develop the record in support of plaintiffs’ facial challenges to the laws, the Court’s discussion of the relevant First Amendment doctrine was a significant endorsement of arguments that Wilson Sonsini has long advanced on behalf of clients facing challenges to the ways that they host, organize, and manage content online.

Wilson Sonsini's legal team, including Brian Willen, Lauren Gallo White, Steffen Johnson, Michael McConnell, Paul Harold, John Kenney, Kelsey Curtis, Nathalie Gorman, and Laura Hernandez, played a pivotal role in presenting constitutional arguments before the Supreme Court, shaping the outcome of this crucial case. To read the Court’s opinion, click here. For more details about Wilson Sonsini's internet strategy and litigation group, click here.