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The most important First Amendment cases of the internet era, to be heard by the Supreme Court on Monday, may turn on a single question: Do platforms like Facebook, YouTube, TikTok and X most closely resemble newspapers or shopping centers or phone companies? The two cases arrive at the court garbed in politics, as they concern laws in Florida and Texas aimed at protecting conservative speech by forbidding leading social media sites from removing posts based on the views they express. (Liptak, 2/25)

Big Tech platforms and their Republican critics are bracing for a faceoff in the Supreme Court on Monday over the policing of online speech. But in the real-world argument over who gets to post their views on social media, conservatives have largely won. The two cases in front of the court have their roots in the post-Jan. 6 banning of Donald Trump from multiple social media platforms. When the then-president was kicked off for violating policies against incitement to violence, state lawmakers in Florida and Texas jumped in. They passed laws later in 2021 to tie the hands of tech companies and force them to keep all views online, and not deplatform political candidates. (Kern, 2/25)

Mark Zuckerberg is seeking to avoid being held personally liable in two dozen lawsuits accusing Meta Platforms Inc. and other social media companies of addicting children to their products. The Meta chief executive officer made his case at a hearing Friday in California federal court, but the judge didn’t immediately make a decision. A ruling in Zuckerberg’s favor would dismiss him as a personal defendant in the litigation with no impact on the allegations against Meta. (Graf, 2/23)

Gov. Ron DeSantis on Friday formally received a bill aimed at keeping children off social media and will have until March 1 to decide whether to sign it. (2/25)