The Biden administration supports big tech platforms’ legal immunity to censor free speech.
The Supreme Court heard cases challenging red state laws on social media censorship.
Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act grants legal immunity to platforms but is criticized for allowing excessive censorship.
Justices debated whether laws restricting tech censorship violate the First Amendment.
“However much validity may be found in these arguments, at each point, the implementation of a remedy calls for some mechanism, either government or consensual,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh said.
“And if it’s governmental, that’s just one brings about a confrontation with the express provisions of the First Amendment. Compelling editors or publishers to publish that which reason tells them should not be published is what is at issue in this case.”
U.S. Solicitor General opposes Texas and Florida laws as unconstitutional restrictions on big tech’s expression.
“These are websites featuring text elements, speech elements, photos, videos, and the platforms, which are private parties not bound by the Constitution, are deciding how they want that to look — what content to put on it, and in what order. That’s an inherently expressive act,” U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar said.
“The critical difference here, of course, is that these platforms are private parties, they’re not bound by the First Amendment,” Prelogar added.
