For years now, federal officials from the White House, the Surgeon General’s Office, CDC, FBI, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency have been in regular contact with nearly every major American social media company about the spread of “misinformation” on their platforms, urging them to remove disfavored content and accounts from their sites. In turn, the social media companies gave government officials access to an expedited reporting system, downgraded or removed flagged posts, and deplatformed users. The platforms also changed their internal policies to capture more flagged content and sent steady reports on their moderation activities to government officials.
A First Amendment lawsuit was subsequently filed against the federal government, arguing that although the social media platforms stifled their users’ speech, it was government officials who were pulling the strings through private communications and threats. Plaintiffs in the lawsuit include two epidemiologists who criticized COVID-19 lockdowns; a psychiatrist who opposed lockdowns and vaccine mandates; the owner of Gateway Pundit, a once-deplatformed news site; and the states of Missouri and Louisiana. In siding with the plaintiffs, both the trial court and the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed that government officials “engaged in a broad pressure campaign” by “relentlessly” asking the platforms to remove disfavored content and threatening to retaliate against inaction with legal reforms and enforcement actions. The U.S. Supreme Court reversed upon finding that the plaintiffs lacked standing to bring the lawsuit. However, a similar case brought by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and others is still pending in the same trial court, and Justice Alito previously noted that Kennedy has a much stronger claim to standing.
Affiliate attorney Christopher F. Moriarty assisted with advancing the arguments in the amicus brief.
The Rutherford Institute, a nonprofit civil liberties organization, provides legal assistance at no charge to individuals whose constitutional rights have been threatened or violated and educates the public on a wide spectrum of issues affecting their freedoms.
This press release is also available at www.rutherford.org.
Source: https://tinyurl.com/npx8ebt4
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