In a 6-3 decision on Wednesday, the Supreme Court ruled that the Biden administration didn’t do anything wrong when asking social media companies to remove posts full of misinformation.
Murthy v. Missouri was filed by Missouri and Louisiana attorneys general who argued that the Biden administration violated the First Amendment by pressuring Meta, Twitter, and YouTube to remove posts containing misinformation about covid-19 during the height of the pandemic. The majority decision, written by Justice Amy Coney Barrett says the states didn’t have the legal right to seek an injunction against the administration and they failed to prove that social media companies took action because of political pressure. She was joined by Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, Kavanaugh, and Jackson while Justice Alito, Thomas, and Gorsuch dissented.
This case originates from a Missouri v. Biden case from May 2022, in which social media users said the removal of their social media posts was a violation of their free speech and blamed the Biden administration for colluding with Big Tech. Lousiana joined the case. In July 2023, a judge ordered an injunction preventing U.S. officials from contacting social media companies.
Murthy v. Missouri received more attention when it was linked with the debacle known as the Twitter Files. After buying Twitter, Elon Musk brought in a bunch of jokers to “dig deep” on what happened at Twitter. Former respected reporter Matt Taibbi, Bari Weiss, and others began reviewing emails from Twitter staff and their big discovery was that when covid deniers and anti-vaxxers began spreading their bullshit on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, the Biden administration sent some emails pointing out the fact that these posts violated the platform’s terms of services.
As Taibbi and company were patting themselves on the back for doing press relations work for Musk, Republicans at both the state and federal levels took it upon themselves to take this farce even further. The House of Representatives held a hearing in 2023 with Republicans claiming the Biden administration was colluding with Big Tech to censor Americans.
This decision comes just in time with the election just a few months away. Of course, if you want to share misinformation, Musk’s X is still the place to be to spew bullshit that he might respond to.
