US Supreme Court ruling on NetChoice cases: What does it mean for Wikipedia?

In 2021, a trade association called NetChoice sued the US states of Florida and Texas, asking courts to block laws aimed at social media from taking effect. Those laws could impact Wikipedia as well, by creating liability for the removal of false or inaccurate material expressing a political viewpoint. The cases rose through the US court system and were heard by the US Supreme Court in February 2024. In July 2024, the Court issued its decision: the Court makes no immediate change to the law, and its opinion contains some good language about content moderation that may be useful for the Foundation in future legal arguments. However, as the cases are instructed to return to the lower courts, the long-term implications of the decision remain to be seen.

In 2021, the states of Texas and Florida in the United States (US) enacted laws designed to restrict social media platforms’ ability to enforce their own content policies. This was a response to high-profile content moderation decisions, which the states alleged constituted “censorship” by large social media platforms of some users’ viewpoints. NetChoice, a trade association representing large social media platforms and other tech companies, immediately sued to block these laws from taking effect by means of two lawsuits: NetChoice, LLC v. Paxton (.pdf file) in Texas, and Moody v. NetChoice, LLC (.pdf file) in Florida. NetChoice claimed these state laws would violate the First Amendment rights of its member companies by forcing them to host speech with which they disagree. Two years and several appeals later, the US Supreme Court agreed to hear these challenges. Rather than answer the constitutional questions, the Court decided this month, July 2024, that the lower courts had not done their jobs correctly. It sent the cases back with instructions to try again—essentially pressing the “reset” button on an expensive multiyear legal process.

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