The Washington PostDemocracy Dies in Darkness

Tech groups ask Supreme Court to block Texas social media law

The emergency application follows a surprise ruling in a lower court Wednesday that allowed the law to take effect

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May 13, 2022 at 7:40 p.m. EDT
A police officer stands behind a fence during an abortion rights protest in front of the Supreme Court building. Tech groups have called on the nation's highest court to vacate a lower court's ruling that would allow Texas's social media law to take effect. (Amanda Andrade-Rhoades/AP)
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Two Washington-based groups representing Google, Facebook and other tech giants filed an emergency application with the Supreme Court on Friday, seeking to block a Texas law that bars social media companies from removing posts based on a user’s political ideology.

The Texas law took effect Wednesday after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit in New Orleans lifted a district court injunction that had barred it. The appeals court action shocked the industry, which has been largely successful in batting back Republican state leaders’ efforts to regulate social media companies’ content-moderation policies.