WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court sent back to lower courts Monday two challenges to Florida and Texas laws regulating social media platforms, deciding that the judges had to better define the stakes of free-speech issues in the disputes.

The opinion covering both cases kept alive the lawsuits over the state laws that seek to regulate Meta, Alphabet, X and other social media companies within state borders.

The ruling essentially prolongs challenges that could shake up how social media companies operate and define how lawmakers could regulate social media companies.

Texas and Florida enacted the laws as part of a conservative backlash to perceived “censorship” of conservative views by major social media platforms, and they included requirements that those sites have a detailed explanation and appeals process when users are blocked.

Justice Elena Kagan, writing for the court’s majority, said the lower courts had to do more work to lay out the legal issues in the cases for the Supreme Court to weigh in.

Kagan wrote that “no one paid much attention” to exactly what the laws covered and whether all the laws’ applications were constitutional or not.

“The online world is variegated and complex, encompassing an ever-growing number of apps, services, functionalities, and methods for communication and connection. Each might (or might not) have to change because of the provisions, as to either content moderation or individualized explanation, in Florida’s or Texas’s law,” Kagan wrote.

The decision sends the cases back to the U.S. courts of appeal for the 5th and 11th Circuit, and it means the Supreme Court will still likely revisit the issue in the future.

The two cases stem from laws in Texas and Florida that would restrict how the largest social media sites and other online platforms moderate their content and require them to explain to an account holder whenever they do remove or alter a post.

The states have argued that the laws would prevent online platforms from discriminating against anyone online based on their viewpoints and ensure transparency in the content moderation process for social media platforms that carry much of public discourse nationwide.

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