'Sir, This Is A Wendy's' Said For First Time At US Supreme Court In Case About Future Of Social Media

The internet-famous phrase, "Sir, this is a Wendy's," was pronounced on the floor of the Supreme Court for the first time in American history today, but like many memes it was rather incomprehensible IRL.

The lawyer representing the state of Texas in a case about content moderation said to the Court:

MR. NIELSON: … that’s not &mash; I mean, that is Orwell, right? So, for me, the answer is, for these kind of things like telephones or telegraphs or voluntary communications on the next big telephone/telegraph machine, those kind of private communications have to be able to exist somewhere. You know, the expression like, you know, sir, this is a Wendy’s. There has to be some sort of way where we can allow people to communicate &nash;
JUSTICE JACKSON: And is that just because of the &nash; the modern public square?

Nielson's argument was that while social media platforms are private companies, the work they do is so foundational to modern discourse that Texas should have the right to regulate their content moderation decisions. His reference to the Sir, This Is A Wendy's meme, in this context, may be in reference to the overall social norms that apply to different areas.

Sir, This Is A Wendy's is often used to shut down inappropriate or bizarre behavior online, but the meme has no legal standing. Many commentators were equally confused and thrilled by its appearance.

The Supreme Court case, however, concerns a very serious matter: The future of speech on the internet.

After several social media platforms banned former President Donald Trump following the January 6th insurrection, both Texas and Florida passed laws aiming to curb the power of the platforms to regulate speech.

These laws were designed to prevent the platforms from banning users or changing their terms of service without warning. A frequent complaint in right-wing circles has been a sense that right-of-center views are censored on social media.

The social media companies sued, arguing that governments dictating decisions made by private companies about who should be allowed or not allowed to speak on their platforms is against the First Amendment. They were concerned that Florida and Texas would interpret these laws to force platforms to promote right-wing views and also pointed out that the First Amendment applies to governments, not private companies.

Lawyers for Texas and Florida in the two separate (but closely linked) cases argued that it is the social media companies that are engaged in censorship of freedom of speech by moderating content.

What both sides seem to agree on is the complex legal territory of fitting the internet into American First Amendment jurisprudence. The Texas and Florida laws are vaguely written, and arguably so is Section 230, the foundational law that allows platforms not to be held liable for what users post (even as they exercise editorial authority over it) is brief and rather vague as well.

Justice Alito perhaps jokingly compared YouTube to a newspaper in a highly memed moment.

The Founders wrote the Bill of Rights 250 years ago. Showing a meme to James Madison would be a lot like showing one to a small Victorian child: He wouldn't know how to respond and it might fry his brain.

That hypothetical scenario will never happen, but the closest thing to it is debating a First Amendment case about the internet in 2024.