Trial News

In a 6-3 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Biden administration and overturned a Fifth Circuit decision that imposed a preliminary injunction on federal officials for allegedly pressuring social media platforms to suppress information. The Court found that the plaintiffs failed to demonstrate a substantial risk of harm directly attributable to government action and thus lacked standing to seek such an injunction. (Murthy v. Missouri, 2024 WL 3165801 (U.S. June 26, 2024).)

During the 2020 election season and the COVID-19 pandemic, social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube significantly increased their efforts to moderate content they considered false and misleading. This included removing posts, placing warning labels, demoting content to reduce visibility, and banning users who repeatedly violated platform policies. Federal officials, concerned about the spread of misinformation, communicated with these platforms regarding their content moderation efforts.

The plaintiffs—the states of Missouri and Louisiana and five individual social media users—claimed that these communications exerted undue pressure on the platforms to suppress their speech. The five individuals alleged “that various platforms removed or demoted their COVID-19 or election related content between 2020 and 2023.” The states alleged that the platforms “have suppressed the speech of state entities and officials, as well as their citizens’ speech.” The plaintiffs argued that this government influence amounted to unconstitutional censorship in violation of the First Amendment. The Fifth Circuit agreed, concluding that the federal officials’ communications with the platforms made them responsible for the platforms’ moderation decisions, leading to the affirmation of a preliminary injunction that stated that “defendants shall not coerce or significantly encourage social-media companies to suppress protected speech on their platforms.”

In a decision authored by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, the Court found that the Fifth Circuit’s conclusions were incorrect. To establish Article III standing for a preliminary injunction, plaintiffs need to show a substantial risk that they would suffer imminent injury traceable to the actions of a government defendant, which would be redressable by the injunction. However, the Court found that none of the plaintiffs met this burden.

Addressing whether the plaintiffs had demonstrated traceability for their past injuries, the Court noted that the platforms had been moderating similar content long before the government officials engaged in the challenged communications. Facebook, for instance, had independently expanded its COVID-19 misinformation policies before any substantial government interaction. The Court determined that the platforms also demonstrated independent judgment in their moderation decisions, at times declining to act on content government officials flagged as violating their policies.

The Court rejected the plaintiffs’ claims that various interactions between federal officials and social media platforms amounted to coercion. These included communications from the White House in early 2021 expressing concern about vaccine misinformation and pushing platforms to take stronger actions. However, the Court noted that these interactions had significantly decreased by late 2022, reducing the likelihood of future harm. It further found that while the Surgeon General issued advisories and made public statements about the need for platforms to combat misinformation, the direct impact on the plaintiffs’ content was tenuous and lacked clear evidence of ongoing coercion. The CDC engaged with platforms, especially in early 2020, to provide authoritative information and identify misinformation trends, primarily involving fact-checking requests from the platforms.

The Court held that the states provided minimal evidence of their social media content being restricted due to government pressure. It determined the alleged incidents lacked a clear causal link between government communications and platform actions. Individual plaintiffs, such as doctors and activists whose content was moderated, primarily experienced these actions before significant government communications started or without clear evidence that government interactions directly influenced these actions.

Justice Barrett emphasized that the plaintiffs’ injuries were largely speculative and lacked concrete evidence connecting them to the government defendants’ actions. Without such evidence, the Court could not justify the Fifth Circuit’s broad injunction.

Washington, D.C., attorney Pooja Chaudhuri, who authored an amicus brief on behalf of Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, said, “The spread of election mis- and disinformation over social media presents a threat to our democracy. The government and civil society organizations play an important role in helping to ensure that voters have accurate information about elections. We are pleased with the decision, as it leaves intact the government’s ability to communicate with social media companies and help stop the spread of harmful misinformation on social media platforms.”