At a Glance:
- The 3-judge panel of the 11thS. Circuit Court of Appeals revived the part of the law requiring social media companies.
- The ruling outlined that some part of the law concerning the political speech was violating social media companies’ First Amendment right to decide what to publish.
- Under the Florida law, the social media companies would receive a fine if they ban political candidates, however, the law was blocked by a federal judge last June.
The Florida social media law restricted the users’ political speech which was violating the free speech right and thus got rejected by the U.S. federal courts, agreeing with the lower court. The 3-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals revived the part of the law requiring social media companies like Meta, Alphabet, Google, and Twitter to disclose the standards they used to moderate content on their platforms.
The decision was authored by Circuit Judge Kevin Newson, appointed by the Republican former President Donald Trump.
The ruling outlined that some part of the law concerning the political speech was violating companies’ First Amendment right to decide what to publish. However, asking the companies to disclose the standards likely did not, ordering the lower court to reconsider that issue.
There was no official comment from Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who signed the law in May 2021.
Comments on Florida Social Media law
The Vice President of NetChoice, Carl Szabo commented, “The First Amendment protects platforms and their right to moderate content as they see fit – and the government can’t force them to host content they don’t want.”
NetChoice is an industry group including Google, Twitter, and Facebook, that had sued to challenge the law, and noted the U.S. Constitution’s protections.
A Republican, DeSantis had previously shared that the law was needed to prevent ‘censorship’ by ‘Big Tech’ hinting toward Trump’s removal by Twitter and FB last year in January. Under Florida law, companies would receive a fine if they ban political candidates. However, the law was blocked by a federal judge last June.
Earlier this month there was another federal appeals court like Texas prohibiting social media companies from banning users for their political views. Now NetChoice is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to block that law.
