Supreme Court rules in favor of Biden admin in Big Tech censorship case; Alito warns ‘country may come to regret’ ruling in fiery dissent
The Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected a challenge against the Biden administration accusing it of improperly colluding with Big Tech companies to censor social media posts deemed “misinformation” about the COVID-19 pandemic and other topics.
In a 6-3 decision, the justices held that the plaintiffs, led by the attorneys general of Louisiana and Missouri, lacked standing to bring the case. Justice Samuel Alito dissented, warning in a blistering opinion that America “may come to regret” the majority ruling, and was joined by Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch. dissented.
The plaintiffs had sought an injunction to restrict the administration’s ability to “coerce” social media companies like Facebook and X to take down certain posts, arguing the Biden administration used its vast regulatory authority to trample on the First Amendment when it requested the removal of material about COVID-19 vaccines and other topics.
The Biden administration countered that it was merely exercising the federal government’s own free speech rights in advising about a public health emergency.
“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. “No plaintiff has carried that burden.”
“The plaintiffs assert injuries based on the restrictions that countless other social-media users have experienced. This theory is startlingly broad, as it would grant all social-media users the right to sue over someone else’s censorship—at least so long as they claim an interest in that person’s speech,” Barrett later added.
She conceded that “the record reflects that the Government defendants played a role in at least some” of the moderation choices, but contended that the “platforms had independent incentives” as well.
During oral arguments back in March, the Supreme Court signaled wariness about siding with the plaintiffs, who included five social media users.
Barrett and her fellow conservatives Brett Kavanaugh and John Roberts, along with their liberal counterparts, had fretted over the scope of the relief sought and were concerned it could set a precedent restricting government officials from private sector collaboration on critical public safety matters.
Alito disagreed, calling the actions of administration officials “blatantly unconstitutional” in his 34-page dissent.
“Purely private entities like newspapers are not subject to the First Amendment … But government officials may not coerce private entities to suppress speech,” he wrote. “The record before us is vast.”
“What the Court seems to want are a series of ironclad links — from a particular coercive communication to a particular change in Facebook’s rules or practice and then to a particular adverse action,” Alito added. “No such chain was required.”
“Internet platforms have a powerful incentive to please important federal officials, and the record in this case shows that high-ranking officials skillfully exploited Facebook’s vulnerability,” the justice stressed. “…Their communications with Facebook were virtual demands. And Facebook’s quavering responses to those demands show that it felt a strong need to yield.”
A lower court had issued a preliminary injunction last summer barring multiple White House officials from corresponding with companies like Google, Facebook and X about content moderation amid the case. The New Orleans-based 5th Circuit Court of Appeals partially upheld that injuction, while narrowing the application to a smaller group of officials.
However, the Supreme Court paused the injunction last year pending its decision.
The case evaluated a practice known as “jawboning” in which the government encourages private sector actors to carry out certain actions, with the specter of undefined consequences if there is no compliance.
