Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/22-277_d18f.pdf
Page Number: 17.0

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

11 

Opinion of the Court 

do  the  laws  have  to  say,  if  anything,  about  how  an  email 
provider  like  Gmail  filters  incoming  messages,  how  an
online  marketplace  like  Etsy  displays  customer  reviews, 
how a payment service like Venmo manages friends’ finan-
cial  exchanges,  or  how  a  ride-sharing  service  like  Uber
runs?  See Tr. of Oral Arg. in No. 22–277, at 74–79, 95–98; 
see also id., at 153 (Solicitor General) (“I have some sympa-
thy [for the Court] here.  In preparation for this argument,
I’ve been working with my team to say, does this even cover 
direct  messaging?  Does  this  even  cover  Gmail?”).    Those 
are examples only.  The online world is variegated and com-
plex,  encompassing  an  ever-growing  number  of  apps,  ser-
vices, functionalities, and methods for communication and 
connection.  Each might (or might not) have to change be-
cause of the provisions, as to either content moderation or
individualized explanation, in Florida’s or Texas’s law.  Be-
fore  a  court  can  do  anything  else  with  these  facial  chal-
lenges,  it  must  address  that  set  of  issues—in  short,  must
“determine  what  [the  law]  covers.”  Hansen,  599  U. S.,  at 
770. 

The next order of business is to decide which of the laws’ 
applications violate the First Amendment, and to measure 
them against the rest.  For the content-moderation provi-
sions,  that means  asking,  as  to every  covered  platform  or
function,  whether  there  is  an  intrusion  on  protected
editorial  discretion.    See  infra,  at  13–19.  And  for  the 
individualized-explanation  provisions,  it  means  asking,
again as to each thing covered, whether the required disclo-
sures unduly burden expression.  See Zauderer, 471 U. S., 
at 651. Even on a preliminary record, it is not hard to see 
how the answers might differ as between regulation of Fa-
cebook’s  News  Feed  (considered  in  the  courts  below)  and,
say, its direct messaging service (not so considered).  Curat-
ing  a  feed  and  transmitting  direct  messages,  one  might 
think, involve different levels of editorial choice, so that the 
one creates an expressive product and the other does not.