On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Murthy v. Missouri about whether Biden administration officials illegally colluded with Big Tech companies to censor and suppress constitutionally protected viewpoints of Americans on social media. The Biden administration is appealing a lower court ruling that found officials had violated the First Amendment by pressuring Facebook, Twitter, and Google into suppressing content on a wide-range of issues, including the validity of the 2020 election, COVID-19 policies, abortion, and gender discussions.
The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the Biden administration to limit its communications with social media companies as to not affect the companies’ decision-making processes about posted content. However, when the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to take the case in October 2023, it temporarily blocked the Fifth Circuit’s order which allows the government and Big Tech unfettered communication for the time being.
Liberty Counsel filed an amicus brief to the High Court which argues that the biggest threat to our First Amendment right to free speech today is the government and big companies working together to remove content they disagree with to “stifle dissent” against “official” government narratives.
In Murthy v. Missouri, which was first known as Biden v. Missouri, attorneys general from Missouri and Louisiana, along with social media users and an independent media outlet, alleged Biden administration officials from many agencies “coerced” social media companies to remove content the government viewed as unfavorable. According to the first ruling in Biden v. Missouri on July 4, 2023, U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty determined “the alleged suppression has potentially resulted in millions of free speech violations.” He then issued an order limiting communications between the government and social media companies.
In September 2023, the Fifth Circuit largely upheld Judge Doughty’s order.
The Fifth Circuit wrote, “The officials have engaged in a broad pressure campaign designed to coerce social-media companies into suppressing speakers, viewpoints, and content disfavored by the government. The harms that radiate from such conduct extend far beyond just the Plaintiffs; it impacts every social-media user.”
The Fifth Circuit ordered certain Biden administration officials to “take no actions, formal or informal, directly or indirectly, to coerce or significantly encourage social-media companies to remove, delete, suppress, or reduce, including through altering their algorithms, posted social-media content containing protected free speech.” The order applies to U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and dozens of other Biden administration officials from The White House, FBI, and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). However, Biden is no longer a named defendant because the Fifth Circuit did not uphold the order against Biden himself.
When the Supreme Court blocked this order, Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Clarence Thomas dissented stating, “Government censorship of private speech is antithetical to our democratic form of government, and therefore today’s decision is highly disturbing.”
The Supreme Court will make a final decision on the case by the end of June 2024.
Liberty Counsel Founder and Chairman Mat Staver said, “The government censoring viewpoints it disagrees with is a direct affront to free speech and offensive to the First Amendment. The government also cannot use third-party media companies to violate the constitutional rights of individual Americans. Censorship has no place in a free society.”
