In a 6-3 decision, the court said states and individuals had failed to prove they were directly harmed by communications between federal officials and social media platforms.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett, writing the majority opinion, noted that companies like Facebook and YouTube have long had content moderation policies that place warning labels on certain posts and remove others. Justice Barrett wrote that the plaintiffs had not shown that the companies’ actions in removing posts could be traced back to the government.
Barrett said the lower court erred in “ignoring the complexities of the evidence” by holding the Biden administration responsible for all decisions to remove or moderate companies’ content.
“While the record indicates that the Government Defendants were involved in at least some of the platforms’ moderation choices, the evidence shows that the platforms had independent incentives to moderate content and often exercised their own judgment,” she wrote.
Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. dissented, joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil M. Gorsuch.
Justice Alito criticized his fellow majority judges for failing to address the fundamental free speech issues at stake in the case, calling the government’s efforts to police problematic content a form of “coercion.”
“The Court has failed in its duty and permitted the successful enforcement campaign in this case to serve as an attractive model for future officials wishing to control what the public says, hears, and thinks,” Justice Alito wrote. “That is a shame.”
This incident Murthy v. Missouri, The ruling gives the Supreme Court an opportunity to decide how government officials interact with social media companies and communicate with the public online. The argument is one of several the court will hear this term that will test Republican-backed claims that social media companies are conspiring with their Democratic allies to silence conservative voices.
The decision could have implications for the U.S. government’s efforts to combat foreign disinformation during a crucial election year when nearly half the world’s population goes to the polls. The government largely stopped warning U.S. tech companies about foreign influence operations after a lower court ruled last year that it had broad restrictions on such communications. The FBI has resumed limited communications with the companies as the 2024 presidential election approaches, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing internal matters.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the ruling will allow the administration to work with social media and other tech companies on issues including terrorist threats, foreign influence operations, online harassment and children’s mental health.
“While social media companies will continue to exercise their own judgment about the information they provide, our consistent view remains that they have a significant responsibility to consider the impact their platforms have on the American people and our national security,” she said in a written statement.
But Jameel Jaffer, director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, said the Supreme Court missed an opportunity to give tech companies and the federal government clear guidance on how the First Amendment should apply to social media. Jaffer said the Supreme Court needs to clarify where the line is between “legitimate government persuasion” and “illegitimate government coercion.”
“Government officials will be operating in a kind of gray area,” said Jaffer, whose group filed a brief not taking sides in the case. “There’s danger in both directions, which is why we needed Supreme Court guidance.”
The ruling is a blow to a broader legal battle by conservatives who say the federal government and tech companies conspire to censor Republican voices online. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, is running a parallel investigation in Congress looking into interactions between tech companies, the federal government and researchers. He said in a statement that he disagrees with the court’s decision but plans to continue his investigation.
“There’s a reason the First Amendment comes first, and freedom of expression must be protected from any infringement by the government,” Jordan said in a statement. “Our important work continues.”
Lawsuits and congressional investigations have already stifled many efforts to examine online misinformation, with researchers saying their work exposes them to increased legal costs and personal attacks. The Stanford Internet Observatory, one of the most prominent organizations tracking online misinformation, dissolved this month after the university incurred millions of dollars in legal costs related to investigations and lawsuits. The Election Integrity Partnership, which the observatory ran with the University of Washington, said it would not continue its work tracking voter suppression and denial in the 2024 election or future elections. Federal agencies are also pulling out. Last year, the National Institutes of Health froze a $150 million program aimed at promoting the dissemination of health information, citing regulatory and legal threats.
Democrats have called on Jordan to drop the investigation following the Supreme Court’s ruling, arguing that the government must be able to work with the private sector to prevent dangerous misinformation from being spread among the public.
“Following this humiliating defeat, I expect Chairman Jordan and his colleagues to conclude their failed investigations of the companies, universities and individuals who have attempted to stop the spread of harmful misinformation and disinformation on social media,” said Jerry Nadler, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee.
The First Amendment prohibits the government from censoring speech or punishing people for expressing differing opinions, but the Biden administration told the court that officials have the right to share information, engage in public debate and urge action as long as requests to remove content are not accompanied by threats.
Top industry groups representing major social media companies, including NetChoice and the Chamber for Progress, praised the Supreme Court for recognizing that social media platforms have their own incentives to moderate content that are not necessarily influenced by the government.
“What this decision shows is that the courts actually understand how content moderation works,” said Jess Mears, senior legal counsel at the Chamber of Progress, an industry coalition that includes Google, Meta and other companies.
“There are important reasons why platforms seek input from stakeholders like the CDC and national security leaders, but at the end of the day, content moderation decisions and platform policies are their own,” she said, referring to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana had argued that the federal government had forced social media companies to suppress the speech of individual users and was too heavily involved in the companies’ decisions to remove certain content. They argued that tech companies cannot act on the government’s behalf to remove speech that the government doesn’t like.
Supreme Court Records Murthy v. Missouri It included email messages between Biden administration officials and social media companies including Facebook parent Meta and Twitter that showed tense conversations in 2021 as the White House and public health officials mounted a campaign to encourage Americans to get vaccinated against the coronavirus.
On Wednesday, lawyers representing the individuals behind the lawsuit criticized the court for finding that “contrary to all the evidence, the federal government cannot be held liable for the natural consequences of its actions to suppress speech.”
“The government can pressure third parties to silence you, but the Supreme Court is not going to find that you have standing to file a complaint unless they explicitly call you by name,” John Vecchione, senior litigation counsel for the New Civil Liberties Union, said in a statement.
In making their ruling, the justices were reviewing lower court decisions that had severely restricted federal agents’ ability to contact tech giants to remove harmful posts or misinformation. A district court judge in Louisiana ruled against the Biden administration, barring thousands of federal agents from unfairly influencing tech companies to remove certain content.
The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals narrowed its ruling to a small number of government officials and agencies, including the Public Health Service, the White House, the CDC, and the FBI. A three-judge panel of the appeals court found that the White House “significantly encouraged the platforms’ decisions by controlling their decision-making process, in violation of the First Amendment.”
Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, a Republican, said in a news release that the lawsuit would continue in lower courts and that he was “considering all other options” to address the censorship allegations.
“My slogan to frustrated Americans is this: We’re not done in Missouri. We will be returning to the district court for more evidence to completely eradicate Joe Biden’s sweeping censorship enterprise,” Bailey said.
Joseph Meng and Tyler Pager contributed to this report.
