High Court’s Public TV Case Spotlights Social Media Free Speech

A Supreme Court case over harassing content aired on public-access TV could lead to greater liability for Facebook Inc., Twitter Inc., and other social media for content on their sites.

The high court Feb. 25 is set to hear arguments centering on the extent to which private operators of public-access channels should be considered state actors—bound to respect free speech—under the First Amendment.

Manhattan Community Access Corp., an independent, nonprofit that operates four public-access channels in New York’s Manhattan borough, asked the court to weigh a U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruling that it can’t evade a ...