The Supremes on a 6-3 decision ruled that neither states nor censored individuals have standing to challenge federal officials who suppress speech on the internet. The bitter irony of this blatant violation of First Amendment rights is that in this particular case involving COVID, it was the government – not the plaintiffs – that was spreading the lies and “disinformation.”
In effect, the Court ruled that the government can lie and then muzzle anyone who dares question their authority.
This is an Orwellian precedent and we found Justice Samuel Alito’s dissent compelling:
For months in 2021 and 2022, a coterie of officials at the highest levels of the Federal Government continuously harried and implicitly threatened Facebook with potentially crippling consequences if it did not comply with their wishes about the suppression of certain COVID–19-related speech. Facebook repeatedly yielded. As a result Hines [the plaintiff] was indisputably injured, and due to the officials’ continuing efforts, she was threatened with more of the same when she brought suit.
These past and threatened future injuries were caused by and traceable to censorship that the officials coerced….
We are obligated to tackle the free speech issue that the case presents. The Court, however, shirks that duty and thus 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.
Because of the perpetrators’ high positions [in government], it was even more dangerous. It was blatantly unconstitutional, and the country may come to regret the Court’s failure to say so.
The Biden administration can now act with a free hand in pressuring social media companies to censor speech.
This is a ruling that sanctions government tyranny.
