The United States Supreme Court threw out a First Amendment case against the Biden administration on Wednesday, protecting the federal government from lawsuits over efforts to suppress “misinformation” on social media during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In the case of Murthy v Missouri, two Republican attorneys general and a group of right-wing social media users argued that Surgeon General Vivek Murthy and other Biden administration officials coordinated a pressure campaign against online platforms, compelling them to suppress or take down specific content related to COVID.
The plaintiffs, led by Missouri AG Andrew Bailey and Louisiana Liz Murrill, claimed that the communications between the federal government and social media companies like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube violated the First Amendment. Other plaintiffs in the case included doctors and epidemiologists who questioned the official pandemic narrative.
In July 2023, US District Judge Terry Doughty ruled in the plaintiffs’ favor, and the decision was then upheld by the Fifth Circuit Court later that year. The federal government then appealed to the Supreme Court, which agreed to hear the case.
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In the 6-3 majority decision written by Trump-appointed Justice Amy Coney-Barrett, the court determined that the plaintiffs did not have standing to bring the case.
“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,” Coney-Barrett wrote. “Because no plaintiff has carried that burden, none has standing to seek a preliminary injunction.”
The justices did not make any ruling on the First Amendment questions the plaintiffs raised, and Coney-Barrett also acknowledged that the White House likely “played a role” in moderating online content. However, the justices determined there was insufficient evidence to justify an injunction.
Conservative Justice Samuel Alito wrote the dissenting opinion, calling Murthy v Missouri “one of the most important free speech cases to reach this Court in years.” Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch joined in the dissent.
“It was blatantly unconstitutional, and the country may come to regret the Court’s failure to say so,” Alito’s dissent read. “For months, high-ranking Government officials placed unrelenting pressure on Facebook to suppress Americans’ free speech. Because the Court unjustifiably refuses to address this serious threat to the First Amendment, I respectfully dissent.”
In response to the ruling, Attorney General Bailey reaffirmed that “the deep state pressured and coerced social media companies to take down truthful speech simply because it was conservative.”
“My rallying cry to disappointed Americans is this: Missouri is not done,” Bailey added. “We are going back to the district court to obtain more discovery in order to root out Joe Biden’s vast censorship enterprise once and for all.”
Connor Walcott is a staff writer for Valuetainment.com. Follow Connor on X and look for him on VT’s “The Unusual Suspects.”
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