The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to take up a lawsuit launched by attorneys general in Louisiana and Missouri alleging the Biden administration colluded with social media companies to censor views on COVID-19 policies and other topics.
But in its Oct. 20 order, the court also accepted the Biden administration’s request to temporarily override a directive by lower courts barring multiple federal government officials and agencies from communicating with tech companies about their content-moderation policies.
“The application for stay is also treated as a petition for a writ of certiorari (request for review), and the petition is granted on the questions presented in the application,” the court said. “The stay shall terminate upon the sending down of the judgment of this court.”
Though the federal government prevailed in staying orders approved by a federal district court and the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, the Louisiana Attorney General’s Office welcomed the high court’s review of the case, which is expected to be completed sometime before the end of June of next year.
“We are pleased to learn that the U.S. Supreme Court will hear this case, giving us yet another opportunity to defend the people from this assault on our First Amendment rights,” Louisiana Solicitor General Liz Murrill said in a prepared statement. “It brings us one step closer to reestablishing the protections guaranteed to us in the Constitution and under the First Amendment. We hope that the Supreme Court will agree that this gross abuse of power must stop and never happen again.”
Initially, federal Judge Terry Doughty of the Western District of Louisiana issued an injunction limiting a long list of federal officials from communicating with social media companies. But the Fifth Circuit narrowed down the injunction so that it applied to the White House, surgeon general, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the FBI.
The Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA), whose membership includes social media companies, also welcomed the high court’s input on this issue.
“This case speaks to a First Amendment issue at the core of our democracy – whether governments may pressure businesses about their decisions on what lawful content to offer to the public – and we look forward to a Supreme Court ruling on the matter,” CCIA President Matt Schruers said in a statement emailed to the Louisiana Record.
But Schruers also said there is a place for constructive government give-and-take with private companies.
“While these decisions are not the domain of the government, it bears recognizing that as companies respond to misinformation around critical issues like elections and public health, voluntary public-private information sharing can help to promote online trust and safety,” he said.
The plaintiffs in the case, including medical doctors, accused government officials of pressuring social media companies to censure their posts on topics such as COVID-19 policies, masking and vaccine mandates.
The Biden administration, however, argued that it was simply trying to get companies to remove misinformation on their platforms that posed risks for public health.
Three justices – Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch – opposed granting the stay to the Biden administration, suggesting that federal officials failed to present evidence that a risk of irreparable harm would occur if the administration officials were barred from communicating with tech companies pending the high court’s review.
“At this time in the history of our country, what the court has done, I fear, will be seen by some as giving the government a green light to use heavy-handed tactics to skew the presentation of views on the medium that increasingly dominates the dissemination of news,” Alito said in the dissenting opinion. “That is most unfortunate.”