The US Supreme Court in Washington, DC, on June 27, 2023.
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WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Friday blocked in full a lower court ruling that may have curbed the Biden administration’s ability to communicate with social media firms about contentious content on such issues as Covid-19.
The choice in a short unsigned order puts on hold a Louisiana-based judge’s ruling in July that specific agencies and officials ought to be barred from meeting with firms to discuss whether certain content ought to be stifled.
The Supreme Court also agreed to immediately take up the federal government’s appeal, meaning it should hear arguments and issue a ruling on the merits in its current term, which runs until the tip of June.
Three conservative justices noted that they might have denied the appliance: Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch.
“Presently within the history of our country, what the court has done, I fear, will probably be seen by some as giving the federal government a green light to use heavy-handed tactics to skew the presentation of views on the medium that increasingly dominates the dissemination of reports. That’s most unlucky,” Alito wrote in a dissenting opinion.
GOP attorneys general in Louisiana and Missouri, together with five social media users, filed the underlying lawsuit, alleging that U.S. government officials went too far in what they characterize as coercion of social media firms to address posts, especially those related to Covid-19. The person plaintiffs include Covid-19 lockdown opponents and Jim Hoft, the owner of the right-wing website Gateway Pundit.
They claim that the federal government’s actions violated free speech protections under the Structure’s First Amendment.
The lawsuit makes various claims relating to activities that occurred in 2020 and before, including efforts to deter the spread of false details about Covid-19 and the presidential election. Donald Trump was president on the time, however the district court ruling focused on actions taken by the federal government after President Joe Biden took office in January 2021.
Judge Terry Doughty, who was appointed by Trump, barred officials from “communication of any kind with social-media firms urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner the removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech.”
The fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals subsequently narrowed the scope of Doughty’s injunction. However the appeals court still required the White House, the FBI and top health officials not to “coerce or significantly encourage” social media firms to remove content the Biden administration considers misinformation.
Affected officials would have included White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and Surgeon General Vivek Murthy.
The administration turned to the Supreme Court hoping to freeze Doughty’s ruling in full.
The district court ruling was on hold while the Supreme Court decided what steps to take.
Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar wrote in court papers that Doughty’s decision was “an unprecedented injunction” that “flouts bedrock principles” of federal law.
“The court imposed unprecedented limits on the power of the President’s closest aides to use the bully pulpit to address matters of public concern, on the FBI’s ability to address threats to the Nation’s security, and on the CDC’s ability to relay public health information at platforms’ request,” she added.
Prelogar argued that the unique injunction is “vastly overbroad,” saying “it covers 1000’s of federal officers and employees, and it applies to communications with and about all social media platforms” regarding content moderation on such topics as national security and criminal matters.
Lawyers for the states and plaintiffs said in court papers that the lower courts had each found “egregious, systematic First Amendment violations” by the federal government when officials put pressure on the businesses to “censor disfavored viewpoints.”