It's Tuesday, February 27, 2024.

I'm Albert Molar and this is the briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview.

Oftentimes big cases come before the Supreme Court of the United States,

and depending on which side of the worldview divide you may be on, you pretty much know exactly how you want the decision

to be handed down.

You know the issues at stake, you understand the constitutional interpretation that's in play,

and so there are so many cases these days

that come before the nation's highest court and just about everyone understands

that they fall out in predictable lines in America's culture war. But sometimes there are cases that don't fit that kind of category,

even if the issues are just as volatile. And in this case we're talking about the issue of social media.

We're talking about the cancel culture.

We're talking about whether or not social media platforms,

and you know the big names, have the right to censor speech on those platforms,

even to cancel accounts or to remove

postings and the background of this is that just about everyone knows that there is a

disproportionate cancellation of conservatives even as the media platforms themselves, are overwhelmingly

part of the Silicon Valley and the high-tech culture of the West Coast.

But with all that just setting the stage, let's understand the oral arguments were held

before the Supreme Court yesterday and a pair of cases that have to do with these very questions.

And in particular, they have to do with whether or not the states of Texas and Florida had the right through their state legislative power to adopt policies that would require the major social media platforms not to cancel or to eliminate

certain forms of speech.

So the cases came before the Supreme Court precisely because you had federal appeals courts, known as

...