Today, the Supreme Court ruled by a 6-3 majority that the plaintiffs did not present sufficient evidence to prove they had the standing to prosecute their claims. The government violated the First Amendment by communicating with social media Companies have been warned about misleading and harmful content on their platforms.
The case was brought by: Attorneys General of Louisiana and Missouriwho alleged that government agencies exerted undue influence over the platforms’ content moderation practices and forced them to remove conservative-leaning content, which violated their citizens’ First Amendment rights. Specifically, the case alleged that government agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) forced social media companies to remove content including posts critical of the use of masks in preventing COVID-19 and posts questioning the legitimacy of the 2020 election.
in May 2022 statement, Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt alleged that members of the Biden administration “colluded with social media companies like Meta, Twitter, and YouTube to remove true information related to the lab-leak theory, the efficacy of masks, the integrity of the election, and more.” Last year, a federal judge an injunction This prevented the government from communicating with social media platforms.
Today, the court said the plaintiffs could not prove that communications between the Biden administration and social media companies “directly resulted in harm resulting from censorship.” In the majority opinion in the case of Murthy v. Missouri, Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote “The evidence indicates that platforms had independent incentives to moderate content and often made their own decisions,” he said.
While it’s the government’s responsibility to ensure it interacts with platforms in a way that doesn’t infringe on free speech — or what’s known as “jawboning” — Kate Ruane, director of the Free Expression Project at the Center for Democracy and Technology, says there are very legitimate reasons why government agencies might need to communicate with platforms.
“Communication between the government, social media platforms, and government entities is important in providing information that social media companies can use to make sure that social media users get authoritative information about where they should go to vote, or what to do in an emergency, or things like that,” she says. “It’s very useful for the government to partner with social media to get accurate information.”
David Green, civil liberties director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, says the court ruled in a case earlier this cycle that Vullo v. National Rifle Association This was probably a clear indication of how this would play out statue decision. In the Vulllo case, the NRA alleged that New York Department of Financial Services Maria Vulllo pressured banks and insurance companies not to do business with the NRA and suppressed the organization’s advocacy. In a 9-0 decision, the court ruled that The NRA had presented sufficient evidence that the case against Vuollo could proceed. In statueHowever, the judges found that the plaintiffs had not presented sufficient evidence to show that the government had pressured the platforms to make content moderation decisions.
“Apart from the fact that the facts involved are politically motivated, the legal issue is not something that I think is traditionally resolved on a partisan basis,” Green says.
But Green says that without clear guidelines, state, local and federal government bodies — of all political leanings — may now feel free to approach the platforms. “We’ll see more of this kind of government involvement in these processes,” he says.
