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Expert Alert

The future of free speech online

February 21, 2024
Portrait of Professor Terry sitting outside with trees and grass in the background.
Professor Christopher Terry. Credit: University of Minnesota
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In 2021, Texas and Florida passed state laws limiting how social media companies, such as Facebook and X, regulate content on their platforms. Technology companies argued the laws violated their First Amendment rights to control the speech that appears on their platforms. 

Now, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments on questions posed by the two cases: do the provisions in the laws that regulate tech companies’ ability to modify or remove the content appearing on their platforms violate the First Amendment, and do the provisions requiring tech companies to explain their decisions to modify specific content violate the First Amendment?

Christopher Terry, an associate professor at the University of Minnesota Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication, is an expert on net neutrality and available to comment on these proceedings.

Christopher Terry

“The future of free speech on the internet is at stake as the Supreme Court hears oral arguments in Netchoice's challenge to the Texas and Florida social media laws. The court will have to wrestle with the application of fundamental First Amendment issues as it explores whether or not state action can be used to compel content carriage and speech on platforms in a significant legal challenge to the longstanding precedent set by the decision in Reno v. ACLU.”

Christopher Terry is an associate professor of media law and Cowles Fellow of Journalism, Policy and Law in the Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication. His research and expertise covers a wide range of topics including administrative law, media ownership and advertising regulation, political advertising, free expression, open access and digital media law.

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Christopher Terry
[email protected]
262-893-2183

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