Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/22-277_d18f.pdf
Page Number: 33.0

Cite as:  603 U. S. ____ (2024) 

27 

Opinion of the Court 

platforms’ practice of “favoring certain viewpoints.”  Brief 
for  Texas  7;  see  id.,  at  27  (explaining  that  the  platforms’ 
“discrimination” among messages “led to [the law’s] enact-
ment”).  The large social-media platforms throw out (or en-
cumber) certain messages; Texas wants them kept in (and
free from encumbrances), because it thinks that would cre-
ate  a  better  speech  balance.    The  current  amalgam,  the 
State  explained  in  earlier  briefing,  was  “skewed”  to  one 
side.  573 F. Supp. 3d, at 1116.  And that assessment mir-
rored the stated views of those who enacted the law, save 
that the latter had a bit more color.  The law’s main sponsor
explained that the “West Coast oligarchs” who ran social-
media companies were “silenc[ing] conservative viewpoints
and ideas.”  Ibid.  The Governor, in signing the legislation, 
echoed the point: The companies were fomenting a “danger-
ous  movement”  to  “silence”  conservatives.  Id.,  at  1108; 
see  id.,  at  1099  (“[S]ilencing  conservative  views  is  un-
American,  it’s  un-Texan  and  it’s  about  to  be  illegal  in 
Texas”).

But a State may not interfere with private actors’ speech
to advance its own vision of ideological balance.  States (and
their  citizens)  are  of  course  right  to  want  an  expressive
realm  in  which  the  public  has  access  to  a  wide  range  of 
views.  That  is,  indeed,  a  fundamental  aim  of  the  First 
Amendment.  But the way the First Amendment achieves
that  goal  is  by  preventing  the  government  from  “tilt[ing]
public  debate  in  a  preferred  direction.”    Sorrell  v.  IMS 
Health Inc., 564 U. S. 552, 578–579 (2011).  It is not by li-
censing the government to stop private actors from speak-
ing  as  they  wish  and  preferring  some  views  over  others. 
And that is so even when those actors possess “enviable ve-
hicle[s]” for expression.  Hurley, 515 U. S., at 577.  In a bet-
ter world, there would be fewer inequities in speech oppor-
tunities; and the government can take many steps to bring 
that world closer.  But it cannot prohibit speech to improve
or better balance the speech market.  On the spectrum of