(FixThisNation.com) – On Monday, the Supreme Court is going to be addressing the latest front in the culture wars in the United States as the Justices will hear two social media ban cases.
The two cases stem from laws in Florida and Texas which are aiming to block social media companies from banning certain users because of the political views that they express. This block would limit the companies’ abilities to ban users even when the opinions they voiced violated their policies. If the Supreme Court votes to have the laws remain then companies would face limitations in enforcing the rules that they have placed on their platform and it could change free speech online.
Knight First Amendment Institute special counsel Scott Wilkens has argued that these cases are likely to have “enormous scope” and that it is going to be the first time that the Supreme Court will be tasked with making a judgment relating to the First Amendment rights on social media platforms. This could end up impacting the space of online free speech.
Both of the laws in question were passed in 2021 after a growing number of Republicans slammed social media companies over the way that they had used suspensions and bans on conservative users for posting content that had been deemed to be in violation of the policies followed by the platforms.
The ultimate such case was when Twitter, which is now called X, Meta, the parent company of Instagram and Facebook had opted to ban former President Donald Trump from the platforms in response to the comments he had made regarding the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack.
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