This is the Kator Daily Podcast for Thursday, July 11th, 2024. I'm Caleb Brown.

The so-called net choice cases challenge state laws that aim to regulate what content or users online platforms must allow.

In applying the First Amendment to the online world, the Supreme Court showed a strong skepticism for those kinds of state restrictions.

Cato is Jennifer Huddleston calls it a win for freedom of speech.

Before we get to the substance of the case, Jen, if you don't mind, detail the laws at issue here.

There were two laws at issue that were somewhat similar but did have some distinctions.

These were social media laws from Texas and Florida.

The Florida law was slightly more narrowly tailored to only apply to candidates for political

office, whereas the Texas law was broader, particularly as it relates to ideological

viewpoints.

Both of these laws were initially passed in response to concerns about social media platforms supposedly

silencing conservative voices and particularly in response to the

de-platforming of former President Donald Trump. The Florida law basically says that you

can't remove the content or account of anyone running for political office.

It also has some transparency requirements around it.

The Texas law was much broader as it relates to social media

and the potential content moderation actions that would be allowed as it relates

to not only political viewpoints but ideological viewpoints more generally.

So what were the complainants hanging their hats on when it comes

to evidence that this kind of silencing was occurring? I think a lot of what was pointed to was the removal of

former president Donald Trump, but in general the state was trying to make the

argument that these were platforms were no longer just

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