Luján Leads Amicus Brief to Protect First Amendment Rights, Keep Online Platforms Safe for Minority Communities

Social Media Content Moderation is Critical to Prevent Hate Speech, Violence, and Radicalization

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.), Chair of the Subcommittee on Communications, Media, and Broadband, filed an amicus brief to the Supreme Court regarding two Republican-led state laws that regulate how social media companies can moderate online content. The amicus underscores that content moderation is primarily a federal matter, emphasizes the important role that social media sites have in the lives of their constituents and marginalized communities, and highlights the important role the legislative branch has in evaluating the constitutionality of legislation under consideration.

The Supreme Court case concerns two laws, in Texas and Florida, that regulate how social media companies can moderate content. Texas and Florida passed these laws in 2021 under the belief that social media companies were censoring users with conservative viewpoints. However, there is no reliable evidence to support the claim that tech companies are censoring conservative viewpoints, and unlike broadcast over public airwaves, social media companies are not natural monopolies and have a First Amendment right to remove political speech that they don’t agree with.

Senator Luján’s amicus argues that social media companies have a First Amendment right to engage in content moderation. The choice of social media companies to set content moderation standards can in turn protect the voices of minority and other traditionally disenfranchised groups. These groups, many of whom historically faced silencing and violence in the “public square” of America’s past, can now find a voice in a variety of other spaces, including privately owned social media platforms. Unmitigated hate speech drives minority communities offline, and social media platforms have a legal responsibility to ensure equal access to historically disadvantaged groups including individuals in Black, Latino, Tribal, and LGBTQ+ communities.

“The internet has an unprecedented ability to connect minority communities across the nation. I took an oath to support and defend the First Amendment, and that means fighting for the rights of minority communities to fully participate in public debate. Increasing online violence, harassment, and hate speech threatens to drive Hispanic, Black, Native, and LGBTQ+ communities offline and back into the fringes of public debate,” said Luján. “As I argue in my amicus, social media companies have their own free speech rights and that includes the right to create spaces for the voices of traditionally marginalized and silenced communities.”

A copy of the amicus brief is available HERE.