ICLE Statement on the US Supreme Court’s NetChoice Decisions
PORTLAND, Ore. (July 1, 2024) – The International Center for Law & Economics (ICLE) offers the following statement on today’s unanimous opinions from the U.S. Supreme Court in NetChoice LLC v. Paxton and Moody v. NetChoice LLC.
The following quote can be attributed to Senior Scholar Ben Sperry:
The Supreme Court today vindicated the First Amendment in a pair of online speech cases involving challenges brought by NetChoice to state platform-moderation laws enacted in Florida and Texas. While lower courts will need to sort out the constitutionality of these laws, this fundamental truth is clear: the First Amendment does not allow the government to compel private actors like social-media platforms to carry speech. The marketplace of ideas is best protected when private actors are free to participate through setting their own moderation policies without government interference. As we argued in our amicus brief, the social-media companies, not bureaucrats or courts, are best-positioned to balance the speech interests of their users.
For more on the topic, see the ICLE amicus brief filed in the cases; Ben’s TechREG Chronicle piece “A Law & Economics Approach to Social-Media Regulation“; and the ICLE white paper “Who Moderates the Moderators?: A Law & Economics Approach to Holding Online Platforms Accountable Without Destroying the Internet.”
To schedule an interview with Ben about the topic, contact ICLE Media and Communications Manager Elizabeth Lincicome at (919) 744-8087 or [email protected].