This week, the Supreme Court finally released its ruling regarding social media censorship initiated by the government.
In what can only be described as completely shocking and disappointing, the court ruled 6-3 in favor of the government, with Justices Roberts, Kavanaugh, and Barrett siding with the liberal justices.
Talking Points…
- The ruling
- Justice Alito scathing dissent
- Analysis
I thought this ruling would be tight, but I never expected three conservative justices to walk across the aisle on this one to side with the government. The case at hand is Murthy v. Missouri, which accuses high-ranking government officials of working with social media companies "under the guise of combating misinformation" to shut down narratives on Hunter Biden's laptop and COVID, among other topics.
The majority opinion was written by Trump-appointed Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who found that the plaintiffs lacked standing, which I find utterly ridiculous. In her opinion, she wrote:
"The plaintiffs, without any concrete link between their injuries and the defendants' conduct, ask us to conduct a review of the years-long communications between dozens of federal officials, across different agencies, with different social-media platforms, about different topics.
"This Court's standing doctrine prevents us from 'exercis[ing such] general legal oversight' of the other branches of Government. We therefore reverse the judgment of the Fifth Circuit and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion."
Her opinion continued:
"The plaintiffs claim standing based on the 'direct censorship' of their own speech as well as their 'right to listen' to others who faced social-media censorship.
"Notably, both theories depend on the platform's actions — yet the plaintiffs do not seek to enjoin the platforms from restricting any posts or accounts. They seek to enjoin Government agencies and officials from pressuring or encouraging the platforms to suppress protected speech in the future."
Justice Alito was livid after the ruling was made, and had no problem calling out the flaws in Barrett's majority opinion in his dissent. Alito stated that the ruling by the court:
"Permits the successful campaign of coercion in this case to stand as an attractive model for future officials who want to control what the people say, hear, and think."
Alito outlines the communications between the administration and Facebook as "virtual demands." He goes on to say:
"Facebook's responses resembled that of a subservient entity determined to stay in the good graces of a powerful taskmaster.
"When criticized, Facebook representatives whimpered that they 'thought we were doing a better job' but promised to do more going forward…And when denounced as 'killing people,' Facebook responded by expressing a desire to 'work together collaboratively' with its accuser."
Jonathan Turley also commented on this on Fox News…
Jonathan Turley breaks down the frustrating anti-free speech ruling in Murthy v. Missouri.
"The Government is engaging in censorship by surrogate... they have made a mockery of the limits of the 1st Amendment." pic.twitter.com/K2eKnJtloF
— Media Research Center (@theMRC) June 26, 2024
Saying that the plaintiffs in this case do not have standing was a weak copout by the court to avoid taking on this case. This is flat-out government overreach, and who better to present the case than two state attorneys general on behalf of their constituents? As Turley noted, this is "censorship by surrogate," which will now allow the government to shut down narratives at will that it simply does not like or support. This is Orwellian in nature, as Turley and other judges have noted, and we are now officially going down the rabbit hole. I believe the court acted cowardly here, using a legal standby to avoid confronting the Biden administration this close to the election on an issue where Biden officials clearly abused their power.
