NETCHOICE LLC v. UTHMEIER
Issue
In *NetChoice v. Uthmeier*, plaintiffs NetChoice LLC and the Computer & Communications Industry Association argue that defendants' expert Ravi Bapna should be excluded because his central opinion—that algorithmic curation is categorically distinct from human editorial judgment and therefore outside First Amendment protection—is an impermissible legal conclusion resting on no reliable methodology. The motion raises a question that goes beyond standard Daubert gatekeeping: whether any expert can supply the factual predicate Florida needs to argue that platform algorithms fall within the narrow reservation *Moody v. NetChoice*, 603 U.S. 707 (2024), left open for feeds operating with "no regard to independent content standards."
What Happened
Plaintiffs filed this Daubert motion on April 3, 2026, in an ongoing First Amendment challenge to Florida's social-media content-regulation statute in the Northern District of Florida. The motion seeks exclusion of all testimony and opinions from Dr. Ravi Bapna, a business analytics professor retained by the state, under Federal Rule of Evidence 702. Plaintiffs press four grounds: that Bapna's core thesis constitutes an impermissible legal conclusion about First Amendment coverage; that his background in information systems does not qualify him to opine on editorial judgment and expressive speech; that his own deposition testimony acknowledged he employed "no methodology" and instead filtered sources through Google to support a pre-formed narrative, ignoring contrary findings in his own cited materials; and that *Moody*'s holding renders his opinions legally irrelevant because Bapna himself conceded that platforms enforce content moderation policies, foreclosing the "no regard to independent content standards" carveout on which his analysis depends.
Why It Matters
This motion sits at the intersection of two of the most contested questions in platform law: what *Moody v. NetChoice* actually means for state content-regulation statutes, and how courts should evaluate expert testimony about how platform algorithms function. If the court excludes Bapna—particularly on the ground that no real-world platform operates as a pure engagement-maximizer indifferent to content standards—it removes the factual foundation Florida needs to sustain its regulatory theory after *Moody*, and signals how similar evidentiary battles will play out in challenges to comparable laws in other states. Even a narrower ruling grounded solely in methodology would leave open the *Moody* reservation question for the merits, but would deprive defendants of the only expert testimony asserting that algorithmic curation is categorically distinct from protected editorial judgment. For anyone tracking state social-media regulation efforts nationwide, this motion is an early indicator of the evidentiary threshold states will face in constructing post-*Moody* records.
Related Filings
Other proceedings in the same litigation tracked by this monitor.
How accurate was this summary?