On Wednesday, the Supreme Court tossed out claims that the Biden administration coerced social media platforms into censoring users by removing COVID-19 and election-related content.
Complaints alleging that high-ranking government officials were censoring conservatives had previously convinced a lower court to order an injunction limiting the Biden administration's contacts with platforms. But now that injunction has been overturned, re-opening lines of communication just ahead of the 2024 elections—when officials will once again be closely monitoring the spread of misinformation online targeted at voters.
In a 6–3 vote, the majority ruled that none of the plaintiffs suing—including five social media users and Republican attorneys general in Louisiana and Missouri—had standing. They had alleged that the government had "pressured the platforms to censor their speech in violation of the First Amendment," demanding an injunction to stop any future censorship.
Plaintiffs may have succeeded if they were instead seeking damages for past harms. But in her opinion, Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote that partly because the Biden administration seemingly stopped influencing platforms' content policies in 2022, none of the plaintiffs could show evidence of a "substantial risk that, in the near future, they will suffer an injury that is traceable" to any government official. Thus, they did not seem to face "a real and immediate threat of repeated injury," Barrett wrote.
"Without proof of an ongoing pressure campaign, it is entirely speculative that the platforms’ future moderation decisions will be attributable, even in part," to government officials, Barrett wrote, finding that an injunction would do little to prevent future censorship.
Instead, plaintiffs’ claims "depend on the platforms’ actions," Barrett emphasized, "yet the plaintiffs do not seek to enjoin the platforms from restricting any posts or accounts."
"It is a bedrock principle that a federal court cannot redress 'injury that results from the independent action of some third party not before the court,'" Barrett wrote.
Barrett repeatedly noted "weak" arguments raised by plaintiffs, none of which could directly link their specific content removals with the Biden administration's pressure campaign urging platforms to remove vaccine or election misinformation.