Case: 21-51178 Document: 00516474571 Page: 38 Date Filed: 09/16/2022 No. 21-51178 Br. at 25. Not only is this assertion unsupported by any authority, but it also illogically equates the Platforms’ ex post censorship with the substantive, discretionary, ex ante review that typifies “editorial discretion” in every other context. 18 In sum, even if “editorial discretion” is a protected legal category, it’s far from clear why (even viewpoint-agnostic) content arrangement and (even infrequent and ex post) censorship should be the criteria for qualification. And in any event, the Supreme Court has never recognized “editorial discretion” as a freestanding category of First-Amendment-protected expression. Rather, the applicable inquiry is whether Section 7 forces the Platforms to speak or interferes with their speech. Section 7 does neither of those things. It therefore passes constitutional muster. 18 Our esteemed colleague in dissent suggests that the timing of the Platforms’ censorship doesn’t matter because censorship decisions “can only be made, as a practical matter, after the appearance of the content on the Platform.” Post, at 13. The dissent’s factual premise is incorrect: Online platforms can and do moderate submissions before transmitting them. For example, the New York Times moderates online comments on its articles before posting them. See The Comments Section, N.Y. Times, https://help.nytimes.com/hc/en-us/articles/115014792387-The-Comments-Section (last visited Aug. 6, 2022). That’s arguably the same form of ex ante curation that newspapers use for other material they publish and that enjoys constitutional protection under Miami Herald. If the Platforms wanted the same protections, they could’ve used the same ex ante curation process. Early online forums and message boards often preapproved all submissions before transmission. See, e.g., Stratton Oakmont, Inc. v. Prodigy Servs. Co., 1995 WL 323710, at *3 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. May 24, 1995) (noting Prodigy’s early policy of “manually reviewing all messages prior to posting”). Later on, the Platforms made a judgment that jettisoning editorial discretion to allow instantaneous transmission would make their Platforms more popular, scalable, and commercially successful. The Platforms thus disclaimed ex ante curation—precisely because they wanted users to speak without editorial interference. That decision has consequences. And it reinforces that the users are speaking, not the Platforms. 38