Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/22-277_d18f.pdf
Page Number: 14.0

8 

MOODY v. NETCHOICE, LLC 

Opinion of the Court 

“editorial  discretion.”  34  F. 4th  1196,  1209,  1216  (2022).
When  a  social-media  platform  “removes  or  deprioritizes  a
user  or  post,”  the  court  explained,  it  makes  a  “judgment 
rooted in the platform’s own views about the sorts of content 
and viewpoints that are valuable and appropriate for dis-
semination.”    Id.,  at  1210.    The  court  concluded  that  the 
content-moderation provisions are unlikely to survive “in-
termediate—let alone strict—scrutiny,” because a State has
no  legitimate  interest  in  counteracting  “private  ‘censor-
ship’ ”  by  “tilt[ing]  public  debate  in  a  preferred  direction.” 
Id., at 1227–1228.  Similarly, the Eleventh Circuit thought 
the  statute’s 
individualized-explanation  requirements 
likely to fall.  Applying the standard from Zauderer v. Office 
of Disciplinary Counsel of Supreme Court of Ohio, 471 U. S. 
626  (1985),  the  court  held  that  the  obligation  to  explain
“millions of [decisions] per day” is “unduly burdensome and 
likely  to  chill  platforms’  protected  speech.”    34  F. 4th,  at 
1230. 

The Fifth Circuit disagreed across the board, and so re-
versed the preliminary injunction before it.  In that court’s 
view, the platforms’ content-moderation activities are “not 
speech”  at  all,  and  so  do  not  implicate  the  First  Amend-
ment.  49 F. 4th 439, 466, 494 (2022).  But even if those ac-
tivities  were  expressive,  the  court  continued,  the  State 
could regulate them to advance its interest in “protecting a
diversity  of  ideas.”  Id.,  at  482  (emphasis  deleted).    The 
court  further  held  that  the  statute’s  individualized-
explanation provisions would likely survive, again even as-
suming that the platforms were engaged in speech.  Those 
requirements,  the  court  maintained,  are  not  unduly  bur-
densome  under  Zauderer  because  the  platforms  needed 
only to “scale up” a “complaint-and-appeal process” they al-
ready used.  49 F. 4th, at 487. 

We  granted  certiorari  to  resolve  the  split  between  the

Fifth and Eleventh Circuits.  600 U. S. ___ (2023).