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The US Supreme Court has begun hearing arguments in a case that could fundamentally alter the nature of speech on the internet. Are platforms like Facebook, YouTube, TikTok and X more like newspapers or phone companies? Two US states – Texas and Florida – passed laws to stop “censorship” of conservative views after Facebook and Twitter/X banned Donald Trump in 2021 over his posts about the January 6 attack on the US Capitol. Florida’s law prevents the platforms barring candidates from political office while Texas’s stops them removing content based on a user’s views. NetChoice and the Computer & Communications Industry Association, representing Facebook and Twitter, say the laws blocked the companies’ rights under the First Amendment, the clause in the US constitution that prevents the government regulating free speech.