The US Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected a lawsuit alleging that Biden administration officials unlawfully pressured social-media platforms to remove content flagged as disinformation, reports the
Wall Street Journal (26 June, Wolfe), ruling that neither the two states nor five private parties who brought the claim had any right to get their allegations before a judge. The lawsuit, spearheaded by Republican state attorneys general in Missouri and Louisiana, had fared well in the lower courts, at one point resulting in an unprecedented injunction that blocked top government officials from communicating with social-media companies about removing “content containing protected free speech” from their platforms. The states claimed executive branch officials for years pressured digital platforms to censor conservative speakers. That campaign reached a fever pitch in 2021, they alleged, after President Biden took office and sought to promote COVID-19 vaccines and counter former President Donald Trump’s claims that the election was rigged. The Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision written by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, said the plaintiffs failed to show they were directly harmed — or faced the risk of future harm — by the alleged actions of Biden administration officials. The lawsuit highlighted emails in which Biden’s advisers asked why Facebook hadn’t taken down a meme that suggested COVID vaccines were harmful or a video from media personality Tucker Carlson questioning if they are effective. In one March 2021 email, Biden adviser Andy Slavitt told Facebook executives they weren’t being straightforward with him about their handling of anti-vaccine content. “Internally we have been considering our options on what to do about it,” Slavitt wrote in one email to contacts at the social-media company. The emails showed Facebook executive Nick Clegg, a former British politician, pushing back against Slavitt’s arguments, citing free speech concerns. But Clegg also told Slavitt the company had “demoted” the Carlson video to limit its reach by half. Among other allegations, Missouri and Louisiana said the FBI had misled social-media companies into believing a New York Post story about Hunter Biden was Russian disinformation, resulting in suppression of the report a few weeks before the 2020 presidential election. The social-media companies, which aren’t parties to the case, have long rejected claims of liberal bias. A trade group that advocates for them didn’t take sides in the case, but in an amicus brief urged the court to set clear boundaries for the government and decree that digital services can’t be held liable for the actions of government officials.
From "Supreme Court Rejects Suit Claiming Government Censored Social Media"
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