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22 

MOODY v. NETCHOICE, LLC 

Opinion of the Court 

unabashedly control the content that will appear to users, 
exercising  authority  to  remove,  label  or  demote  messages 
they disfavor.5 

Except that Texas’s law limits their power to do so.  As 
noted earlier, the law’s central provision prohibits the large 
social-media  platforms  (and  maybe  other  entities 6)  from
“censor[ing]” a “user’s expression” based on its “viewpoint.”  
§143A.002(a)(2); see supra, at 7.  The law defines “expres-
sion”  broadly,  thus  including  pretty  much  anything  that 
might be posted.  See §143A.001(2).  And it defines “censor” 
to  mean  “block,  ban,  remove,  deplatform,  demonetize,  de-
boost, restrict, deny equal access or visibility to, or other-
wise  discriminate  against  expression.”    §143A.001(1).7 
That is a long list of verbs, but it comes down to this: The 
platforms cannot do any of the things they typically do (on 
their main feeds) to posts they disapprove—cannot demote, 
label, or remove them—whenever the action is based on the 

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5 We therefore do not deal here with feeds whose algorithms respond 
solely to how users act online—giving them the content they appear to
want, without any regard to independent content standards.  See post, 
at 2 (BARRETT, J., concurring).  Like them or loathe them, the Community
Standards  and  Community  Guidelines  make  a  wealth  of  user-agnostic
judgments about what kinds of speech, including what viewpoints, are 
not worthy of promotion.  And those judgments show up in Facebook’s 
and YouTube’s main feeds. 

6 The scope of the Texas law, a matter crucial to the facial inquiry, is 
unsettled, as previously discussed.  See supra, at 10–11.  The Texas so-
licitor  general  at  oral  argument  stated  that  he  understood  the  law  to 
cover Facebook and YouTube, but “d[id]n’t know” whether it also covered 
other platforms and applications.  Tr. of Oral Arg. in No. 22–555, pp. 61– 
62. 

7 In  addition  to  barring  “censor[ship]”  of  “expression,”  the  law  bars 
“censor[ship]” of people.  More specifically, it prohibits taking the desig-
nated “censor[ial]” actions against any “user” based on his “viewpoint,” 
regardless of whether that “viewpoint is expressed on a social media plat-
form.”  §§143A.002(a)(1), (b); see supra, at 7.  Because the Fifth Circuit 
did not focus on that provision, instead confining its analysis to the law’s 
ban  on  “censor[ing]”  a  “user’s  expression”  on  the  platform,  we  do  the 
same.