These four communications cases have been granted cert. for the current Supreme Court term. Cases will be heard through the fall and winter, with opinions published between April and June.
Moody v Netchoice is a pending Supreme Court case involving state government attempts to stop censorship by social media companies. At issue is (1) Whether the First Amendment prohibits a state (specifically Florida and Texas) from requiring that social-media companies host third-party communications, and from regulating the time, place, and manner in which they do so; and (2) whether the First Amendment prohibits a state from requiring social-media companies to notify and provide an explanation to their users when they censor the user’s speech. The state laws were blocked in a lower court but revived in a federal appeals court, on Sept. 16, 2022. The Supreme Court granted cert. in May 2023 for the cases.
An early take on how Moody might be decided shows up in a federal case, Republican National Committee v Google, which was dismissed in favor of Google on Aug. 24, 2023. The RNC alleged that Google had been intentionally misdirecting its emails to Gmail users’ spam folders at the end of each month “to secretly suppress the political speech and income of one major political party.” The court said the RNC had not proven bad faith and that, in any event, that would have been protected by section 230 of the CDA.
O’Connor-Ratcliff v. Garnier. When a public official blocks someone from their social media personal, unofficial social media account, is that an act of censorship prohibited by the First Amendment?
Vidal v. Elster, Does the the refusal to register a trademark under 15 U.S.C. § 1052(c) violates the free speech clause of the First Amendment when the mark contains criticism of a government official or public figure.
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