Supreme Court to Uphold Texas Social Media Law in Jan. 5 Ruling, Draft Shows

The Draft Majority

The Supreme Court is poised to uphold most of Texas's social media disclosure law in an opinion scheduled for release on Monday, January 5, according to two clerks familiar with the court's deliberations. The majority opinion, authored by Justice Samuel Alito, will reject a broad industry challenge and allow Texas to enforce transparency, appeal, and content moderation disclosure requirements against large platforms, the clerks said.

The case, NetChoice LLC v. Paxton, docket number 22-555, reached the court after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit upheld the Texas statute in a fractured 2024 decision. The draft opinion does not disturb the Fifth Circuit's central holding that the state may require platforms with more than 50 million monthly active users to publish content moderation standards and provide an individualized appeals process, the clerks said.

Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch are expected to join the Alito opinion in full, while Justice Amy Coney Barrett may file a concurrence that narrows the scope of one provision, according to one clerk. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson is expected to write the principal dissent, joined by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the clerk said.

The court is expected to post the ruling at 10 a.m. on January 5, the clerks said. The opinion runs roughly 58 pages, with a 34-page dissent, according to a lawyer who argued the case and was briefed on the draft.

Alito circulated a draft majority to the other chambers on December 18, and the final vote was locked by December 23, one clerk said. The court does not announce authorship in advance, but internal scheduling documents list January 5 as an opinion day, the clerk added.

The case was argued before the court on April 28, 2025, with lawyers for NetChoice and the Texas attorney general presenting sharply different views of the First Amendment. A separate challenge to Florida's similar law, Moody v. NetChoice, was decided alongside the Texas case in the same 2024 term, the lawyer said.

What the Law Requires

Texas House Bill 20, enacted in 2021, subjects large social media platforms to several operating requirements. Platforms must publish acceptable use policies, produce biannual transparency reports, and maintain a complaint and appeal system for users whose content is removed. Violations can draw civil penalties of $25,000 per day per affected user and attorney fees, according to the statute.

The statute, found in Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code Chapter 123, also requires platforms to provide users with a written explanation when content is removed and to respond to appeals within 48 hours. The Texas attorney general proposed enforcement rules in November 2025 that would require platforms to maintain a publicly available complaint portal, the DOJ official said.

The Alamo Post has learned that the majority will uphold the disclosure and appeal provisions while striking down a narrower data retention requirement that the state failed to connect to a legitimate government interest, the clerks said. The ruling leaves platforms exposed to private lawsuits in Texas state court if they fail to explain specific moderation decisions.

Industry groups had argued that the law violates the First Amendment by compelling platforms to carry and promote speech they would otherwise remove. The draft majority rejects that argument for the transparency and appeal provisions, viewing them as permissible disclosure rules akin to those the court has upheld for public utilities, the lawyer said. The opinion distinguishes the Texas provisions from Florida's content moderation restrictions, which the court struck down in a separate 2024 decision, the lawyer added.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's office is preparing a compliance guidance document for platforms, a DOJ official with knowledge of state filings said. The guidance is expected to set a 60-day deadline for platforms to revise their appeal policies and to file their first transparency reports under the law by March 1, the official said.

The law applies to platforms with more than 50 million monthly active users in the United States, a threshold that covers YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, X, TikTok, and LinkedIn, according to the statutory text. Smaller platforms and email providers are excluded, the DOJ official said.

Industry Response and What Comes Next

Trade associations representing Meta, X, Alphabet, and ByteDance have held calls this week to coordinate litigation strategy, according to a lawyer involved in the challenge. The groups are expected to seek a stay of the mandate from the district court in Austin and may file a new complaint challenging the January 5 opinion's application to algorithmic recommendation systems, the lawyer said.

NetChoice, the Computer and Communications Industry Association, and the Chamber of Progress have retained separate counsel for the expected follow-on litigation, the lawyer said. The groups are also weighing a lobbying push in Congress to preempt state social media laws through federal legislation, two congressional aides familiar with the discussions said.

The ruling is likely to trigger copycat legislation in at least six Republican-led states, two state legislative aides tracking the matter said. Draft bills in Florida, Ohio, and Tennessee are already modeled on the Texas framework and could advance during legislative sessions convening in January, the aides said.

Legal scholars who reviewed drafts of the opinion said the ruling could reshape how platforms disclose moderation policies nationwide, even if the decision is narrowly framed around Texas's transparency requirements.

Major outlets are expected to confirm the outcome once the opinion is released. The court does not comment on pending opinions, and a public information officer declined to discuss the schedule. Watch for the opinion at 10 a.m. Eastern on January 5, with enforcement filings in Texas state court to follow within 72 hours.