The Volokh Conspiracy

Mostly law professors | Sometimes contrarian | Often libertarian | Always independent

Free Speech

Judge Preliminarily Enjoins Florida's Social Media Statute

|

The order (NetChoice LLC v. Moody) just came down from Judge Robert L. Hinkle; I hope to have more on it in the days to come, but here's one excerpt:

FAIR and PruneYard establish that compelling a person to allow a visitor access to the person's property, for the purpose of speaking, is not a First Amendment violation, so long as the person is not compelled to speak, the person is not restricted from speaking, and the message of the visitor is not likely to be attributed to the person.

The Florida statutes now at issue, unlike the state actions in FAIR and PruneYard, explicitly forbid social media platforms from appending their own statements to posts by some users. And the statutes compel the platforms to change their own speech in other respects, including, for example, by dictating how the platforms may arrange speech on their sites. This is a far greater burden on the platforms' own speech than was involved in FAIR or PruneYard.