TALLAHASSEE — With the U.S. Supreme Court poised to hear arguments next month, Florida is disputing that a 2021 state law placing restrictions on large social media platforms such as Facebook or X violates First Amendment rights.

In a brief filed last week, attorneys for the state contended the platforms should be considered like telephone companies and said the First Amendment does not give them “constitutional license to selectively silence the speech of those they may host.”

The law would prevent large platforms from banning political candidates from their sites and require companies to publish and apply consistent standards on issues such as banning users or blocking their content.

“In hosting billions of speakers and petabytes of content, the platforms are engaged in business activity — conduct — that may be regulated in the public interest,” the state’s brief said. “The First Amendment does not afford those who host third-party speech a right to silence the hosted speakers or to treat them arbitrarily. The telephone company, internet service provider, and delivery company can all be prevented from squelching or discriminating against the speech they carry. And so can the platforms.”

The state wants the Supreme Court to overturn a decision by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that blocked key parts of the law, which Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Republican-controlled Legislature passed after Facebook and Twitter, now known as X, blocked former President Donald Trump from their platforms in the aftermath of Trump supporters storming the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Tech-industry groups NetChoice and the Computer & Communications Industry Association challenged the constitutionality of the law. Tallahassee-based U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle issued a preliminary injunction blocking it, and most of Hinkle’s ruling was upheld by the appeals court. Hinkle described the law as “riddled with imprecision and ambiguity.”

In a November brief at the Supreme Court, lawyers for the industry groups contended the law was designed to punish platforms that were perceived as having a liberal viewpoint.

“While the state is free to criticize websites for their decisions about what content to display, disseminate, remove or restrict, the First Amendment prohibits the state from countermanding those editorial decisions and substituting its own judgment,” the brief said. “Just as Florida may not tell the New York Times what opinion pieces to publish or Fox News what interviews to air, it may not tell Facebook and YouTube what content to disseminate.”

The Supreme Court will hear arguments Feb. 26 in the case and a challenge to a similar Texas law. In contrast to the 11th Circuit, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals supported restrictions on social-media platforms in the Texas law.