US Supreme Court will not curb Biden administration social media
contacts
Send a link to a friend
[June 27, 2024]
By Andrew Chung
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Supreme Court declined on Wednesday to
impose limits on the way President Joe Biden's administration may
communicate with social media platforms, rejecting a challenge made on
free speech grounds to how officials encouraged the removal of posts
deemed misinformation, including about elections and COVID.
The justices, in a 6-3 ruling, overturned a lower court's 2023 decision
that various federal officials likely violated the U.S. Constitution's
First Amendment, which protects against governmental abridgment of free
speech, in a case brought by the states of Missouri and Louisiana as
well as five individuals.
The New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had issued an
injunction constraining such contacts by the administration. But
conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who authored the Supreme Court's
ruling, wrote that the two Republican-led states and the other
plaintiffs lacked the required legal standing to sue the administration
in federal court.
The plaintiffs in 2022 sued officials and agencies across the federal
government, including in the White House, FBI, surgeon general's office,
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Cybersecurity and
Infrastructure Security Agency.
Barret wrote that the plaintiffs could not show a "concrete link"
between the conduct by the officials and any harm that the plaintiffs
suffered. They "emphasize that hearing unfettered speech on social media
is critical to their work," Barrett wrote. "But they do not point to any
specific instance of content moderation that caused them identifiable
harm."
Conservative Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch
dissented from the decision.
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre welcomed the ruling,
saying it helps Biden's administration "continue our important work with
technology companies to protect the safety and security of the American
people, after years of extreme and unfounded Republican attacks on
public officials who engaged in critical work to keep Americans safe."
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2024/Jun/27/images/ads/current/humanesociety_sda022411.png)
The plaintiffs had argued that the administration violated the rights of
social media users whose posts were removed by platforms including
Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter, now called X.
The legal issue was whether the administration crossed the line from
mere communication and persuasion to strong arming or coercing platforms
- sometimes called "jawboning" - to unlawfully censor disfavored speech,
as lower courts found.
Biden's administration argued that officials sought to mitigate the
hazards of online misinformation, including false information about
vaccines during the pandemic that they said was causing preventable
deaths, by alerting social media companies to content that violated
their own policies.
"This administration engages with social media and other technology
companies on critical topics, including terrorism threats, foreign
malign influence campaigns, online harassment of women and children, and
mental health of children and adolescents," Jean-Pierre added.
[to top of second column]
|
![](../images/062724PIX/news_n33.jpg)
People line up to get into the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington,
U.S., June 26, 2024. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2024/Jun/27/images/ads/current/library_lda_HEROES_2024.png)
Many researchers, as well as liberals and Democrats, have warned of
the dangers of social media platforms amplifying misinformation and
disinformation about public health, vaccines and election fraud.
Echoing concerns raised by Republicans and various voices on the
right, the plaintiffs argued that platforms, with their
content-moderation practices, suppressed conservative-leaning
speech. That was, the plaintiffs said, government coercion - a form
of state action barred by the First Amendment.
'A FREE PASS'
Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill criticized the ruling,
saying, "A majority of the Supreme Court gives a free pass to the
federal government to threaten tech platforms into censorship and
suppression of speech that is indisputably protected by the First
Amendment."
In a dissent, Alito wrote that the court's majority "permits the
successful campaign of coercion in this case to stand as an
attractive model for future officials who want to control what the
people say, hear and think."
Barrett faulted the evidence provided by the plaintiffs and said
lower courts had "glossed over complexities." Barrett found that
Louisiana-based U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty, who issued a
preliminary injunction in July 2023, made factual findings that
"unfortunately appear to be clearly erroneous."
Doughty had concluded that the plaintiffs were likely to succeed on
their claim that the government helped suppress "disfavored
conservative speech" on mask-wearing, lockdowns and vaccines
intended as public health measures during the pandemic, or that
questioned the validity of the 2020 election in which Biden, a
Democrat, defeated Donald Trump, a Republican.
The 5th Circuit subsequently narrowed that order, although the
Supreme Court in October had put on hold the injunction.
Wednesday's ruling represented another rejection by the Supreme
Court of a decision by the 5th Circuit, whose far-reaching decisions
are under increased scrutiny by the justices.
The Supreme Court has reversed or thrown out six of the eight 5th
Circuit decisions that the justices have addressed so far. For
instance, the justices on June 13 reversed a 5th Circuit decision
restricting access to the abortion pill, also on legal standing
grounds.
(Reporting by Andrew Chung; Additional reporting Trevor Hunnicutt;
Editing by Will Dunham)
[© 2024 Thomson Reuters. All rights reserved.]This material
may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2024/Jun/27/images/ads/current/graue_sda_042021.png) |