The Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected a challenge against the Biden administration accusing it of improperly colluding with Big Tech companies to censor social media posts deemed “misinformation” about the COVID-19 pandemic and other topics.
In a 6-3 decision, the high court held that the plaintiffs lacked standing.
Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch dissented.
“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,” Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote in the majority opinion. “No plaintiff has carried that burden.”
During oral arguments in March, the Supreme Court signaled wariness about siding with the Republican attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana who brought forward the case, with several conservative justices questioning the precedent it would set.
A lower court had barred multiple White House officials from corresponding with companies like Google, Facebook and X about content moderation amid the case, which the Supreme Court previously paused. The decision on Thursday scraps that.
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AP
In a blistering dissent, Alito warned that the actions of officials in the case were “blatantly unconstitutional, and the country may come to regret the Court’s failure to say so.”
“Purely private entities like newspapers are not subject to the First Amendment … But government officials may not coerce private entities to suppress speech,” he wrote. “The record before us is vast.”
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.