SCOTUS Delivers A Big Win To Biden And A Crippling Blow To GOPs Weaponization Of Government Claims

By allowing the Biden administration to press social media companies to remove disinformation, the Supreme Court wounded Trump's weaponization of government claims.

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The Supreme Court Gives Biden A Big Win For Protecting Democracy

Photo by Bill Mason on Unsplash

If you have watched any of the Jim Jordan/James Comer-produced House investigative hearings, a couple of recurring themes come up. Reps. Jordan and Comer claim that President Biden has weaponized the government against his political rivals and that Biden is weaponizing the government by pressuring social media companies to censor conservative content.

A majority on the Supreme Court, in the Murthy v. Missouri ruling released on Wednesday morning, dealt a blow to the claim that conservatives are being censored. By a vote of 6-3 with Roberts, Barrett, and Kavanaugh joining the three liberal justices, the majority wrote:

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.

Usually, lack of standing is an off-ramp for the Supreme Court to use when they don’t want to touch an issue. In this case, the question of standing goes to the heart of the matter, as we will talk about below.