Supreme Court Sides With White House In Case Challenging Government Efforts To Curb Social Media Disinformation

The Supreme Court sided with the White House in a challenge to the administration’s efforts to curb disinformation on social media.

In a 6-3 ruling, the justices rules that two states and five social media users lacked standing to show that First Amendment rights were violated as Biden administration officials called on social media platforms to stem disinformation about the Covid vaccine, among other things.

“To establish standing, the plaintiffs must demonstrate a substantial risk that, in the near future, they will suffer an injury that is traceable to a Government defendant and redressable by the injunction they seek,” Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote in the majority opinion. “Because no plaintiff has carried that burden, none has standing to seek a preliminary injunction.”

Barrett put particular emphasis on causation.

“As already discussed, the platforms moderated similar content long before any of the Government defendants engaged in the challenged conduct,” she wrote. “In fact, the platforms, acting independently, had strengthened their pre-existing content moderation policies before the Government defendants got

involved. For instance, Facebook announced an expansion of its COVID–19 misinformation policies in early February 2021, before White House officials began communicating with the platform. And the platforms continued to exercise their independent judgment even after communications with the defendants began.”

Read the social media opinion.

More to come.