Computer & Comm v. Paxton
Split Score
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Case Summary
Disposition
Affirmed in Part
The Fifth Circuit consolidated appeals challenging Texas H.B. 18, a statute requiring social-media platforms to implement numerous safeguards for minors. The court held that the private-user plaintiffs (SEAT) lacked standing to attack most provisions and that the age-verification challenge is foreclosed by recent precedent, but it affirmed a preliminary injunction for trade-association plaintiffs (CCIA/NetChoice) because H.B. 18’s monitoring-and-filtering mandate is pre-empted by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Accordingly, the injunction was affirmed as to CCIA/NetChoice and vacated and remanded as to SEAT.
Circuit Split Identified
Legal Issue
Whether Section 230(c)(1) pre-empts state laws that impose liability on social-media platforms for their content-curation or filtering duties (i.e., treating those duties as publisher conduct).
Circuit Positions
Broad pre-emption: §230 bars state claims imposing any duty on platforms to monitor, filter, or curate third-party content.
Limited pre-emption: §230 does not bar claims when liability is based on the platform’s own algorithms or curation decisions (treated as first-party speech/product design).
Conflict Summary
The Fifth Circuit reads §230 broadly, holding that any duty requiring platforms to monitor, filter, or curate third-party content treats them as publishers and is therefore pre-empted. The Third and Ninth Circuits have allowed claims or statutes to proceed when they target the platform’s own algorithmic curation or product design, reasoning that such curation is the platform’s first-party speech and falls outside §230’s publisher immunity.