USA Social media - Supreme Court rejects lawsuit against Biden administration
The US Supreme Court has rejected an attempt by Republicans to restrict US President Joe Biden's administration from communicating with social media companies about content on their platforms. The Supreme Court's decision published on Wednesday stated that the plaintiffs had no standing to appeal. The case stems from the coronavirus pandemic.
26.06.2024, 17:51
SDA
The plaintiffs, including the Republican attorneys general of the states of Louisiana and Missouri, had accused the government led by Democrat Biden of illegally exerting pressure on platforms such as Twitter and Facebook to remove content that the US government deemed to be misinformation, for example with regard to the pandemic.
"Plaintiffs, who see no concrete connection between their harm and defendants' conduct, ask us to review years of communications between dozens of federal officials in various agencies, on various social media platforms, and on various topics," Judge Amy Coney Barrett wrote. The court has no such oversight authority, she said. The decision was by six votes to three and leaves open key substantive issues that are likely to be resolved at a later date.
The court did not address freedom of speech issues in its decision, but limited itself mainly to the question of standing. In a dissenting opinion, Justice Samuel Alito wrote that the government's conduct had been unconstitutional. He said it was unfortunate that the court had not recognized this. A federal court in Louisiana had previously prohibited the White House and a number of government agencies from communicating with social media companies about content removal. This ruling has now been overturned by the Supreme Court decision.
According to US media, the ruling is also significant for the presidential election in November. This is because it means that the Department of Homeland Security, for example, can continue to flag posts on social media such as Facebook and X that it assumes are the work of foreign agents attempting to influence the election, according to CNN, for example.
