First Amendment challenges on social media: a panel analysis of Moody, NetChoice and Paxton vs. Moody v. Paxton

For example, a bipartisan group of current and former election officials submitted a brief emphasizing the importance of allowing people in their roles to “remain free to communicate with social media platforms to share accurate information about when, how, and where to vote; to correct false election information; and to address violent threats and intimidation directed at their own ranks.” They said it was important that election officials and government agencies were aware of when social media companies reached out to them to promote accurate voting information and restrict the spread of false content.

A ruling against the states would hurt the democratic process, as information sharing among government, civil society and social media companies is essential to prevent fraudulent election interference and voter suppression efforts.

The committee stated that a too-sensitive test could have negative consequences. It could make it harder for news media to get information from government sources. It could allow the use of burdensome fishing expeditions, if the plaintiffs believed they were proof of a conspiracy between journalists and public officials.

The American Medical Association (AMA) stated in a brief that the Biden administration has a compelling interest in fighting vaccine misinformation. The American Medical Association says that vaccinations save lives.

The AAPS wrote that the American Medical Association’s assertion would allow the government to limit the speech of people like Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., a presidential candidate and leading voice in the anti-apartheid movement.

“The same arguments made by the AMA Amici could be extended to other types of speech disfavored by the Biden Administration, such as criticism of transgender procedures and late-term abortion,” the AAPS wrote.

The court heard another set of First Amendment challenges on social media. In those cases, Moody v. NetChoice and NetChoice v. Paxton, the court considered whether state laws legislating how social media companies could moderate posts on their sites violated the platforms’ own First Amendment rights.

Hans stated that many of the amicus briefs were filed in favor of neither party, even from First Amendment groups that would generally be against such a case. “I take that as a sign of the sort of theoretical messiness of the issues in this case,” he said.

Unlike Bantam Books, Hans said, where “it’s pretty clear what happened, and it was also one specific instance of government interference, here we have a whole plethora of actions that are not necessarily created equal.” The Supreme Court might not be the right place to sort out some of these questions.

The First Amendment Clinic at the Cornell Law School anticipates a difficult case to be Murthy v. Missouri, since the states identify a vast range of actions by different parts of the government with which they take issue.

The US Chamber of Commerce warned the court against using the theory of state action to penalize private entities in its brief. If the Court views this case as state action, it should confirm that the remedy for the government to interfere with private speech choices is restraining the government with injunctions that restrict the exercise of private speech.

Jones said that the standard for when conduct of a private actor can be turned into state action was created by Yaretsky. Private actors can be held responsible for their actions because they are acting at the direction of the government.

Murthy vs. Musk: The Supreme Court Decides to Decide How the Government Talks to Social Media Companies and Other Social Media Platforms

At the moment, various arms of the US government will communicate directly with platforms for all sorts of reasons. It is possible that Facebook will set up an information hub for its users if the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention uses email to communicate with them. (You can imagine similar scenarios for voter misinformation, election integrity, and all kinds of public emergencies.)

The commission did not want book distributors to comply with the law but instead wanted them to suppress content that the commission did not like. The government went too far in this instance because the courts recognized that it was constitutional for the authorities to tell others to do certain things. The Constitution is violated when the acts are coercive, and when the pressure is applied so that the government doesn’t like it.

The Rhode Island commission was created to evaluate whether or not books for adolescents were appropriate. The commission coerced book distributors into suppressing certain works.

The Murthy decision will help determine whether or not the Biden administration can alert social media platforms about potentially concerning content on their sites. That could affect the safeguards these companies have put up around misinformation, and may change the kind of flags and warnings you see on posts all over the internet. SCOTUS is likely to issue a decision around June, just months ahead of the November elections.

If this legal argument sounds familiar, that could be because many of Murthy is part of the crusade by Musk to make the “60 Minutes” show a thing. The AG in Missouri released a press release about the lawsuit that included references to Hunter Biden’s laptop, the leak theory and the efficacy of masking.

Source: SCOTUS to decide case on how the government talks to social media companies

First Amendment First Amendment Anomalies Cannot be Used for Official Business: A Case Study in Port Huron, Michigan City Manager James Freed

Several interest groups wrote amicus briefs to the court warning that no matter how the justices rule, they should be careful not to craft a standard that harms these groups’ work.

The court issued a unanimous decision in Lindke v. Freed, a case about whether Port Huron, Michigan city manager James Freed violated the First Amendment by blocking and deleting comments on his Facebook page from resident Kevin Lindke, who critiqued Freed’s pandemic policies. The test creates a new method to determine if an official can be held liable for violating a citizen’s rights on social media.

It was suggested that the information could make a difference in the determination. “Here, if Freed’s account had carried a label—e.g., ‘this is the personal page of James R. Freed’—he would be entitled to a heavy presumption that all of his posts were personal,” the ruling says, “but Freed’s page was not designated either ‘personal’ or ‘official.’”

The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University said in a statement that the court had the right to say that public officials cannot immunity from First Amendment liability if they use personal accounts for official business.

Dhillon Law Group partner Gary Lawkowski said in an emailed statement about the new ruling that “the biggest impact of this opinion may not be the formal test set forth in its holding—rather, its language buried in the opinion that effectively creates a safe harbor for public officials who place disclaimers on their social media accounts, providing an easy way for public officials to stay on the ‘personal’ side of the law going forward.”

The Knight Institute challenged former President Donald Trump in 2017 over blocking users from his @realDonaldTrump Twitter account. The lower courts agreed with their argument that the account of his was a public forum where people should not have been excluded for their views. In 2021, when Trump was no longer in office, the Supreme Court ordered the lower court to vacate a ruling against Trump and dismiss it as moot.