Missouri says the Biden administration censored speech. The Supreme Court will judge

The case focuses on whether the several federal government entities — the White House, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Surgeon General, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency — coerced or significantly encouraged the social media sites to block and remove content from their sites, which would violate the First Amendment.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre declined to comment on the case on Friday and directed the Star to a brief filed by the Department of Justice ahead of the arguments.

In that brief, Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar argued that the government was simply using its bully pulpit to convince social media companies to take action on posts that spread false information.

Prelogar also suggested that a ruling by the court could imply that the social media companies are state actors, subjecting them to additional lawsuits claiming they violated people’s First Amendment right to free speech.

Already, two federal courts ruled against the federal government — the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana and the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. Both courts issued rulings limiting the Biden administration’s contact with social media companies. The Supreme Court put those orders on hold until after it makes its decision.

“It will have broad implications for how the government is permitted to weigh in on matters of public concern, and the extent to which they’re able to communicate information to the platforms,” said Jennifer Jones, a staff attorney at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University.

In its ruling, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals found that each of the governmental entities had either coerced or significantly encouraged the sites to take down or stifle posts — and in some cases it found that it did both.

In the case of the FBI, it found the agency had coerced and significantly encouraged the social media sites to take down content, arguing that because it was a law enforcement agency, any request to take down content came with the implicit threat that it could take legal action.

Prelogar argued that the social media companies ignored the FBI’s requests about half the time.

Sen. Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, wrote a brief in the case urging the Supreme Court to allow the government to continue to communicate with social media companies about potential national security threats on their platforms.

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