SCOTUS Appears Set to Rule in Favor of Online Censorship

What’s happening: Supreme Court justices seemed hesitant to stop the Biden administration from policing online speech during oral arguments in a pivotal case last month.

• Catch up: The case, Murthy v Missouri (originally Missouri v Biden), began with a lawsuit filed by Republican officials who said the government violated the Constitution when it asked platforms to censor viewpoints on vaccines and other topics. A ruling is expected in June.

How it went: Conservative and liberal justices were skeptical that government coerced Big Tech.

• Chief Justice John Roberts said the platforms are routinely contacted by individuals in government, as opposed to official agencies, and claimed this “dilute[s]” the argument that the dialogue is coercive. Justices Elena Kagan and Brett Kavanaugh concurred.

• Ketanji Brown Jackson was widely criticized for saying her “biggest concern” is the idea of “the First Amendment hamstringing the government in significant ways.”

Changing the focus: Justices largely focused questions on extreme situations, such as content encouraging self-harm or “doxxing” of personal information — rather than government targeting constitutionally-protected speech.

• Direct harm: They also questioned whether the plaintiffs, a mix of state officials and social media users, could demonstrate evidence of direct harm from government interference.

Why it matters: Although the Supreme Court recognizes interactions between government and tech platforms as anodyne, its decision could further normalize an unprecedented form of politically motivated, state-sanctioned censorship in America.

• The dissent: Conservative justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch previously filed a brief criticizing “government censorship of private speech.” Alito and Thomas sharply questioned the Biden administration during oral arguments.