Understanding the Supreme Court’s 2024 Decisions: Impacts on Public Relations Practice

With all the coverage of presidential politics, it is easy to overlook the recent major U.S. Supreme Court cases. These cases rule on issues ranging from the level of power held by agencies to the role the government can play in combatting disinformation. For PR practitioners, these cases will have a major impact on the way communication will be practiced in the future. Here is an overview of the major cases this term and what they mean for communicators:

Administrative Agency Power

What does a ruling about a fishing case have to do with public relations? Well, a lot. 

Since 1984, U.S. Supreme Court case law has given major deference to administrative agencies’ interpretation of the statutes they administer. That standard, articulated in Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., was commonly referred to as Chevron deference. The standard stated that when evaluating whether agency interpretations of law were constitutional, courts first had to ask if Congress had specifically addressed the issue. If not, then the agency only had to prove that their interpretation was reasonable. That second step allowed agencies great deference, and ultimately courts had to go along with agency interpretations even if the court had a different, legally sound interpretation. For 40 years, the impact of this decision has given rise to increasingly powerful federal agencies whose rulemaking and implementation were largely approved by federal courts. 

However, the constitutionality of Chevron was challenged by two cases: Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, and its companion case, Relentless v. Department of Commerce. Both cases involved the fishing industry and regulations placed on fishermen to maintain sea monitoring required by the Department of Commerce and its subsidiary agencies. The U.S. Supreme Court, in a 6-3 vote, held that the Department of Commerce overstepped its authority in these cases in a decision that struck down Chevron deference. No longer are courts required to defer to agencies. Instead, courts now have more power to interpret statutory ambiguities.

In a practical sense, this decision weakens agencies and empowers courts. In a regulated industry like public relations, practitioners should expect regulations by federal agencies, such as the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and Federal Communications Commission (FCC), to be overturned more regularly when challenged in federal courts. This means that agency laws may not have the staying power they once did. 

Can States Regulate Social Media?

One of the most anticipated cases for communicators was Moody v. NetChoice and its companion case, NetChoice v. Paxton.  The pair of cases addressed recent laws passed in Florida and Texas that were designed to regulate how social media companies control content. Florida’s law prohibited social media platforms from removing a candidate running for office permanently from a platform. Texas’s law banned platforms from taking down content based on viewpoint discrimination. The states argued that social media companies were discriminating against conservative content online.

Two trade associations, NetChoice and the Computer & Communications Industry Association, challenged these laws, stating that social media companies should have the same First Amendment protection afforded to traditional media, such as newspapers. The lawsuits resulted in a split decision with the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals upholding a preliminary injunction against the Florida law and the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals striking down an injunction against the Texas law. In a unanimous decision, the U.S. Supreme Court sent both cases down to the circuit courts to reevaluate the laws’ implications on social media more broadly, rather than the narrowly analyzing based on large companies, such as Meta and YouTube. In the majority opinion, Justice Elena Kagan noted that there was a serious implication for the First Amendment and the role of social media platforms in curating content. She acknowledged the issue of how First Amendment jurisprudence has application to the modern reality of social media. She wrote:

“While much about social media is new, the essence of that project is something this Court has seen before. Traditional publishers and editors also select and shape other parties’ expressions into their own curated speech products. And we have repeatedly held that laws curtailing their editorial choices must meet the First Amendment’s requirements.”

However, Kagan noted that these state regulations went well beyond curated social media feeds, but also could affect communications such as customer reviews and even email filters. The implications for PR practitioners are significant if states can regulate the content curation and community standards of social media platforms. However, as of now, communication professionals will have to wait and see how this develops. It is an issue that will likely be back on the docket in the future.

Combatting Disinformation

The criticism of social media outlets targeting conservative speakers was also analyzed in Murthy v. Missouri on June 26.  In that case, the Attorney Generals of Missouri and Louisiana filed suit claiming that social media companies were working with the Biden administration to censor conservative speech online. The lawsuit included several high-level federal officials, including Surgeon General Vivek Murthy. The lawsuit was the result of a larger criticism of social media in which conservatives claimed they were censored by community standards and other editorial decisions by specific platforms. This allegation was fueled by the release of information, including so-called “Twitter files” released in 2022 to select journalists in which allegations were made that the U.S. government was working with Twitter to suppress certain speech (others said the files only showed Twitter struggling with complex community standards issues). The lawsuit alleged that the U.S. government’s involvement with social media companies constituted a violation of the First Amendment because the U.S. government was engaging in content-specific discrimination in concert with social media companies.

The Court, however, took a different approach to the case. Instead of ruling on First Amendment grounds, the Court, in a 6-3 decision containing both conservatives and liberals, held that the Attorney Generals did not have Article III standing to bring the lawsuit. That means they are not the proper parties entitled to sue, and the holding did not address the underlying First Amendment claims. For PR practitioners, it is likely that these issues of content moderation and control will continue. If the level of control is weakened, then social media platforms and their content will change dramatically. This presents strategic communication issues for PR practitioners engaging in reputation management and regular social media content creation.

PR practitioners should expect the issues around social media, agency regulation, and content control to continue. This is particularly important as artificial intelligence is still largely unregulated, and the role of content management has become an increasingly politicized issue. Communicators should be prepared for more volatility in administrative regulations of communications considering the demise of the Chevron doctrine and expect the role of law and regulation for communication to be changing are a faster, and perhaps more unpredictable, pace.