A pair of cases before the U.S. Supreme Court will shape the future of social media content. Both cases—Moody v. NetChoice and NetChoice v. Paxton—present novel questions about the free speech protections available to social media platforms under the First Amendment.

The appeals stem from laws passed in Texas and Florida, respectively. Following the suspension of former President Donald Trump’s Twitter account in the aftermath of Jan. 6, 2021, both state legislatures voiced concerns that social media companies unfairly censored conservative viewpoints. They each enacted statutes that restricted the websites’ discretion to moderate content from their users. They also required the platforms to explain particular decisions to remove certain content.