Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/22-277_d18f.pdf
Page Number: 41

4 

MOODY v. NETCHOICE, LLC 

BARRETT, J., concurring 

arise  in  litigation  that  more  thoroughly  exposes  the  rele-
vant  facts  about  particular  social-media  platforms  and
functions.  The answers in any given case might cast doubt 
on—or might vindicate—a social-media company’s invoca-
tion of its First Amendment rights.  Regardless, the analy-
sis is bound to be fact intensive, and it will surely vary from 
function to function and platform to platform.  And in a fa-
cial  challenge,  answering  all  of  those  questions  isn’t  even
the  end  of  the  story:  The  court  must  then  find  a  way  to
measure the unconstitutional relative to the constitutional 
applications to determine whether the law “prohibits a sub-
stantial amount of protected speech relative to its plainly
legitimate sweep.”  United States v. Hansen, 599 U. S. 762, 
770 (2023) (internal quotation marks omitted).

A facial challenge to either of these laws likely forces a 
court to bite off more than it can chew.  An as-applied chal-
lenge,  by  contrast,  would  enable  courts  to  home  in  on 
whether  and  how  specific  functions—like  feeds  versus  di-
rect  messaging—are  inherently  expressive  and  answer
platform-  and  function-specific  questions  that  might  bear 
on  the  First  Amendment  analysis.  While  the  governing
constitutional  principles  are  straightforward,  applying
them in one fell swoop to the entire social-media universe 
is not.