First Amendment

Advertiser boycotts, content moderation coalitions, and other forms of coordinated conduct increasingly pursue both commercial and social objectives, blurring the line between protected expression and unlawful collusion. In a new paper Madhavi Singh argues that extending First Amendment immunity to these “prosocial cartels” would undermine antitrust law and that they should instead be evaluated under the rule of reason.

Mihir Kshirsagar argues that the evidence presented in FTC v. Meta shows that discussions about the application of First Amendment protections to social media must go beyond the binary set in Moody v. NetChoice between treating them as common carriers or editorial agents. Rather, a commercial conduct framework is needed to understand how speech operates on platforms designed to maximize user attention and ad revenue.