Syllabus

NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued. The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader. See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

Syllabus MOODY, ATTORNEY GENERAL OF FLORIDA, ET AL. v. NETCHOICE, LLC, DBA NETCHOICE, ET AL. CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT

No. 22–277. Argued February 26, 2024—Decided July 1, 2024*

In 2021, Florida and Texas enacted statutes regulating large social-me- dia companies and other internet platforms. The States’ laws differ in the entities they cover and the activities they limit. But both curtail the platforms’ capacity to engage in content moderation—to filter, pri- oritize, and label the varied third-party messages, videos, and other content their users wish to post. Both laws also include individualized- explanation provisions, requiring a platform to give reasons to a user if it removes or alters her posts. NetChoice LLC and the Computer & Communications Industry As- sociation (collectively, NetChoice)—trade associations whose members include Facebook and YouTube—brought facial First Amendment challenges against the two laws. District courts in both States entered preliminary injunctions. The Eleventh Circuit upheld the injunction of Florida’s law, as to all provisions relevant here. The court held that the State’s restrictions on content moderation trigger First Amendment scrutiny under this Court’s cases protecting “editorial discretion.” 34 F. 4th 1196, 1209, 1216. The court then concluded that the content-moderation provi- sions are unlikely to survive heightened scrutiny. Id., at 1227–1228. Similarly, the Eleventh Circuit thought the statute’s individualized- explanation requirements likely to fall. Relying on Zauderer v. Office of Disciplinary Counsel of Supreme Court of Ohio, 471 U. S. 626, the —————— *Together with No. 22–555, NetChoice, LLC, dba NetChoice, et al. v. Paxton, Attorney General of Texas, on certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. 2 MOODY v. NETCHOICE, LLC

Syllabus

court held that the obligation to explain “millions of [decisions] per day” is “unduly burdensome and likely to chill platforms’ protected speech.” 34 F. 4th, at 1230. The Fifth Circuit disagreed across the board, and so reversed the preliminary injunction of the Texas law. In that court’s view, the plat- forms’ content-moderation activities are “not speech” at all, and so do not implicate the First Amendment. 49 F. 4th 439, 466, 494. But even if those activities were expressive, the court determined the State could regulate them to advance its interest in “protecting a diversity of ideas.” Id., at 482. The court further held that the statute’s indi- vidualized-explanation provisions would likely survive, even assuming the platforms were engaged in speech. It found no undue burden un- der Zauderer because the platforms needed only to “scale up” a “com- plaint-and-appeal process” they already used. 49 F. 4th, at 487. Held: The judgments are vacated, and the cases are remanded, because neither the Eleventh Circuit nor the Fifth Circuit conducted a proper analysis of the facial First Amendment challenges to Florida and Texas laws regulating large internet platforms. Pp. 9–31. (a) NetChoice’s decision to litigate these cases as facial challenges comes at a cost. The Court has made facial challenges hard to win. In the First Amendment context, a plaintiff must