Supreme Court blocks restrictions on Biden administration efforts to get platforms to remove social media posts
The Supreme Court on Friday blocked in full a lower court ruling that would have curbed the Biden administration's ability to communicate with social media companies about contentious content on such issues as Covid-19.
The decision in a short unsigned order puts on hold a Louisiana-based judge's ruling in July that specific agencies and officials should be barred from meeting with companies to discuss whether certain content should be stifled.
The Supreme Court also agreed to immediately take up the government's appeal, meaning it will hear arguments and issue a ruling on the merits in its current term, which runs until the end of June.
Three conservative justices noted that they would have denied the application: Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch.
TL; DR?
Partisan courts? Perish the thought.
Blatantly ignoring precedents.
Imagine cigarette companies regaining the ability to downplay adverse health affects and market towards children.
That might be the least of our worries.
I'm sure they're inagining it well enough
I remember when the thing republicans were decrying was “activist judges”.
No shit. That didn’t age well.
TLDR for why the conservative justices have their opinion: they state they can’t understand why broad undefined rules would inhibit free speech.
It’s generally understood that if rules are broad and undefined, then speakers will prefer to self censors proactively, thus limiting speech.
I think you have it backwards. They want to stop the administration from pressuring social media to self censor, i.e. prevent the administration from inhibiting free speech.
Nope, I’m pretty sure I’m reading their opinion right
The injunction prevented specific government agencies from coercing or otherwise threatening to punish social media companies who didn't remove posts. That's neither broad nor undefined.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The decision in a short unsigned order puts on hold a Louisiana-based judge's ruling in July that specific agencies and officials should be barred from meeting with companies to discuss whether certain content should be stifled.
"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.
We look forward to dismantling Joe Biden's vast censorship enterprise at the nation's highest court," Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey said in a statement Friday.
Judge Terry Doughty, who was appointed by Trump, barred officials from “communication of any kind with social-media companies urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner the removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech.”
But the appeals court still required the White House, the FBI and top health officials not to “coerce or significantly encourage” social media companies to remove content the Biden administration considers misinformation.
Prelogar argued that the original injunction is “vastly overbroad,” saying “it covers thousands of federal officers and employees, and it applies to communications with and about all social media platforms” regarding content moderation on such topics as national security and criminal matters.
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