We'll have to wait a little longer to see if the Supreme Court will upend the internet.

From American public media, this is Marketplace Tech.

I'm Megan McCarty-Karino.

Earlier this week, the Supreme Court announced it was putting off hearing a pair of highly

anticipated cases that could fundamentally change social media as we know it.

The case is concerned laws in Florida and Texas, pushed by conservatives in those states,

which basically make it illegal for social media platforms to block or hide content, like

say from a former president, even if the post violates the company's terms of service.

Both laws have been blocked from taking effect while we wait for the high court to weigh

in.

Daphne Keller is director of the program on platform regulation at Stanford Cyber Policy

Center.

She explained why these cases could be so consequential.

The Texas and Florida laws both have what are known as must-carry provisions.

They both have an idea that there are certain kinds of content that platforms may not take

down, even if their terms of service prohibited or even if it is, say, hate speech or horrible

things that are legal, but nobody wants to see online, but they also both of the laws

have transparency mandates to publish information about what their speech rules are in more detail

and what decisions they've made moderating content and how much content has been taken

down.

So there's this interesting secondary issue about when the government can compel platforms

to disclose that really interesting and important information.

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