WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear arguments on February 26 in a First Amendment dispute concerning a 2021 Florida law imposing constraints on large social media companies.
The Supreme Court’s schedule, released last Friday, confirmed the inclusion of this case. Florida sought Supreme Court intervention after the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a substantial portion of a preliminary injunction issued by U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle against the law in 2021.
Governor Ron DeSantis championed the legislation following Twitter’s rebranding as X and Facebook’s decision to block former President Donald Trump from their platforms in the aftermath of the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot.
The law, among its provisions, aims to prohibit major platforms from excluding political candidates on their sites. It also mandates companies to establish and consistently apply standards on matters such as user bans and content blocking.
Violating these restrictions could result in penalties for companies, with fines reaching $250,000 per day for statewide candidates and $25,000 per day for other candidates if political figures are removed from platforms.
The constitutionality of the law was contested by industry groups NetChoice and the Computer & Communications Industry Association, leading to the issuance of the injunction by Judge Hinkle, who criticized the legislation as “riddled with imprecision and ambiguity.”
In a parallel development, the Supreme Court is slated to address a similar challenge to a Texas law on February 26, further underscoring the significance of the legal issues surrounding social media regulations.