What the Government Can and Cannot Restrict: Speech, Books, and Websites
Key takeaways
- The First Amendment bars federal, state, and local governments from punishing most speech, but not private companies, which can moderate their own platforms.
- Some speech is unprotected, including true threats, incitement to imminent violence, obscenity, child sexual abuse material, and defamation, though each has narrow legal definitions.
- School boards and libraries have wide control over what they acquire and remove, and the Supreme Court declined in December 2025 to review a ruling that gave a Texas county broad power to remove library books.
- Section 230 shields websites from most lawsuits over users' posts, and a bipartisan bill would end it unless Congress rewrites it.
- Congress forced the sale of TikTok's U.S. business through a 2024 law the Supreme Court upheld in January 2025, and a U.S. joint venture took over in January 2026.
- Government officials may criticize speech but cannot coerce private companies into suppressing it, as the Supreme Court held unanimously in 2024.
Americans often ask whether the government can ban a book, take down a website, or punish someone for what they say. The answer depends on who is acting, what kind of speech is involved, and whether the government is acting as a regulator, an employer, a school, or a speaker itself.
This guide explains the basic rules, which agencies have any power over speech and media, and the court fights of 2024 to 2026 over books, platforms, apps, and government pressure.
The First Amendment limits government, not private companies, so social media platforms can remove posts and users. Section 230, passed in 1996, shields them from most lawsuits over users' posts and their moderation decisions. In 2024 the Supreme Court held that platforms' choices about content are protected editorial judgment, while sending state laws in Texas and Florida back for review. In June 2025 it upheld a Texas law requiring age verification for pornographic sites, and in May 2025 Congress passed the Take It Down Act requiring platforms to remove nonconsensual intimate images within 48 hours. Many states have passed laws limiting social media for minors, which face court challenges.
No federal agency bans books, but states, school boards, and public libraries decide what to buy and keep. The Supreme Court said in 1982 that school boards may not remove books simply to suppress ideas, but that ruling was only a plurality and courts have split since. In 2025 a federal appeals court ruled that a Texas county library's choices are government speech the First Amendment does not limit, and the Supreme Court declined to review the case in December 2025. That same year it ruled that parents may opt their children out of lessons using books that conflict with their religious beliefs. Supporters of removals say parents and elected officials should decide what children read, while opponents call it censorship.
Officials often try to influence speech informally, a practice called jawboning. In NRA v. Vullo in 2024 the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that a New York official could not threaten insurers to punish an advocacy group for its views. In Murthy v. Missouri that year it dismissed claims that federal officials coerced platforms into removing COVID-19 and election posts, for lack of standing. In 2025 the chair of the Federal Communications Commission warned a broadcaster over a late-night host's comments, which drew criticism from both parties, and a federal judge ruled in September 2025 that a policy of deporting noncitizen students and scholars for pro-Palestinian speech violated the First Amendment.
The First Amendment says Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech or of the press, and since 1925 the Supreme Court has applied it to states and localities through the Fourteenth Amendment. Government generally cannot punish speech because of its message or viewpoint. A few narrow categories are unprotected, including incitement to imminent lawless action, under Brandenburg v. Ohio in 1969, true threats, obscenity, child sexual abuse material, and defamation. Government can set neutral rules on the time, place, and manner of speech, such as noise limits, and has more power over its own employees and in schools.
The government can act against foreign-owned apps on national security grounds. A 2024 law required TikTok's Chinese parent to sell its U.S. business or face a ban, and the Supreme Court upheld it unanimously on January 17, 2025, finding it aimed at foreign control and data, not speech. After repeated delays in enforcement, a U.S. joint venture took control on January 22, 2026. The government also can rarely stop publication in advance: in the Pentagon Papers case in 1971 the Court refused to block newspapers from publishing a classified history of the Vietnam War, though leakers can be prosecuted.
No federal agency has general power to censor. The FCC can fine broadcasters for indecency on public airwaves, the FTC polices deceptive advertising, the Postal Service enforces obscenity mail laws, and prosecutors bring cases for threats, fraud, and child exploitation. Courts are the final referees. Debates continue over whether platforms censor too much or too little, whether children need more protection online, whether officials are pressuring the media, and how to treat flag burning and protest, which the Supreme Court protects as speech.
See the full list of rights in the Bill of Rights explained, how the press covers officials in how the press covers government, or secrecy and leaks in how government secrets work.