Murthy v. Missouri

Murthy v. Missouri, Supreme Court No. 23-411, is a lawsuit by states and websites against federal government censorship on the internet. Oral argument was held on March 18, 2024, and the U.S. Supreme Court rendered its decision on June 26, 2024, totaling about 18,000 words (including the added summary) with a dissent longer than the majority opinion.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote for the 6-3 Court:

“

During the 2020 election season and the COVID-19 pandemic, social-media platforms frequently removed, demoted, or fact checked posts containing allegedly false or misleading information. At the same time, federal officials, concerned about the spread of “misinformation” on social media, communicated extensively with the platforms about their content-moderation efforts. The plaintiffs, two States and five social-media users, sued dozens of Executive Branch officials and agencies, alleging that they pressured the platforms to suppress protected speech in violation of the First Amendment. The Fifth Circuit agreed, concluding that the officials’ communications rendered them responsible for the private platforms’ moderation decisions. It then affirmed a sweeping preliminary injunction. The Fifth Circuit was wrong to do so. To establish standing, the plaintiffs must demonstrate a substantial risk that, in the near future, they will suffer an injury that is traceable to a Government defendant and redressable by the injunction they seek. Because no plaintiff has carried that burden, none has standing to seek a preliminary injunction.

”

Murthy v. Missouri, No. 23-411, 2024 U.S. LEXIS 2842, at *10-11 (June 26, 2024).

Justice Sam Alito dissented, as joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch. The dissent began:

“

This case involves what the District Court termed “a far-reaching and widespread censorship campaign” conducted by high-ranking federal officials against Americans who expressed certain disfavored views about COVID-19 on social media. Missouri v. Biden, 680 F. Supp. 3d 630, 729 (WD La. 2023). Victims of the campaign perceived by the lower courts brought this action to ensure that the Government did not continue to coerce social media platforms to suppress speech. Among these victims were two States, whose public health officials were hampered in their ability to share their expertise with state residents; distinguished professors of medicine at Stanford and Harvard; a professor of psychiatry at the University of California, Irvine School of Medicine; the owner and operator of a news website; and Jill Hines, the director of a consumer and human rights advocacy organization. All these victims simply wanted to speak out on a question of the utmost public importance.

”

Murthy v. Missouri, No. 23-411, 2024 U.S. LEXIS 2842, at *47-48 (June 26, 2024) (Alito, Thomas and Gorsuch, JJ., dissenting).

Questions Presented

As explained by the federal government's merits brief in this Murthy case:

Respondents are two States and five individual users of social-media platforms who allege that the federal government transformed the private platforms’ contentmoderation decisions into state action and violated the First Amendment by communicating with the platforms about content moderation and responding to the platforms’ inquiries about matters of public health. The district court issued a preliminary injunction that, as modified by the court of appeals, restricts speech by thousands of federal officials and employees concerning any content posted by anyone on any social-media platform.

The questions presented are:

1. Whether respondents have Article III standing.

2. Whether the government’s challenged conduct transformed private social-media companies’ contentmoderation decisions into state action and violated respondents’ First Amendment rights.

3. Whether the terms and breadth of the preliminary injunction are proper.