The Supreme Court on Tuesday prevented Texas from immediately enforcing a new state law that seeks to ban major social media platforms from suppressing user posts based on the content of their speech.
The court, in a brief written order, granted an emergency request from a pair of leading technology industry business groups to suspend the law for the time being while challenging it in court. The groups warned that the law would unleash a torrent of hate speech and misinformation on their platforms.
The court order came with a 5 to 4 vote. As is usual in court emergency orders, the majority did not explain their reasoning. Judge Samuel Alito filed a dissent with Judges Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch. Judge Elena Kagan also disagreed, but did not agree with Alito’s opinion or present his opinion.
Texas regulations prohibit social networking platforms with at least 50 million monthly active users from censoring users based on their views, applying to sites like Facebook FB,
Instagram PINS, Pinterest,
TikTok, Twitter TWTR,
GOOGL from Vimeo and Alphabet,
YouTube.
The law allows Texas residents, or anyone doing business in the state, to sue the platforms for alleged violations and to sue for the removal of content. He also entrusts the enforcement authority of the state attorney general. The law allows plaintiffs to seek precautionary assistance and attorneys’ fees, but not compensation.
An extended version of this report appears on WSJ.com.
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