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MOODY v. NETCHOICE, LLC 

Opinion of the Court 

own.  And that activity results in a distinctive expressive
product.  When the government interferes with such edito-
rial choices—say, by ordering the excluded to be included—
it alters the content of the compilation.  (It creates a differ-
ent  opinion  page  or  parade,  bearing  a  different  message.) 
And in so doing—in overriding a private party’s expressive 
choices—the government confronts the First Amendment.4 
Second, none of that changes just because a compiler in-
cludes most items and excludes just a few.  That was the 
situation in Hurley.  The St. Patrick’s Day parade at issue 
there was “eclectic”: It included a “wide variety of patriotic, 
commercial,  political,  moral,  artistic,  religious,  athletic,
public  service,  trade  union,  and  eleemosynary  themes,  as 
well as conflicting messages.”  515 U. S., at 562.  Or other-
wise said, the organizers were “rather lenient in admitting
participants.”  Id., at 569.  No matter.  A “narrow, succinctly 
articulable message is not a condition of constitutional pro-
tection.”  Ibid.  It “is enough” for a compiler to exclude the 
handful of messages it most “disfavor[s].”  Id., at 574.  Sup-
pose,  for  example,  that  the  newspaper  in  Tornillo  had 
granted a right of reply to all but one candidate.  It would 
have made no difference; the Florida statute still could not 
have altered the paper’s policy.  Indeed, that kind of focused 
editorial  choice  packs  a  peculiarly  powerful  expressive 
punch.

Third, the government cannot get its way just by assert-
ing an interest in improving, or better balancing, the mar-
ketplace  of  ideas.    Of  course,  it  is  critically  important  to
have a well-functioning sphere of expression, in which citi-
zens have access to information from many sources.  That 

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4 Of course, an entity engaged in expressive activity when performing 
one function may not be when carrying out another.  That is one lesson 
of FAIR.  The Court ruled as it did because the law schools’ recruiting 
services  were  not  engaged  in  expression.    See  547  U. S.  47,  64  (2006). 
The case could not have been resolved on that ground if the regulation
had affected what happened in law school classes instead.