Missouri attorney general says government censored social media. The Supreme Court seemed skeptical

“Do you know how often the FBI makes those kinds of calls?” Barrett asked.

Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch appeared more open to the state’s argument.

Alito questioned the fact that the government and social media companies talked about being on the “same team” and their many meetings and emails about content moderation, saying it appeared the government was “treating Facebook and these other actors like they’re subordinates.”

Principal Deputy Solicitor General Brian Fletcher said the context matters — saying they were working on a public health campaign to get people vaccinated during a pandemic.

The justices also homed in on the fact that President Joe Biden said the companies were “killing people,” prompting Fletcher to argue that Biden later walked the comments back.

After the arguments, Bailey appeared pleased that the justices had highlighted that line, as well as the idea that the federal government could take away Section 230, a law that prevents social media companies from being sued over content posted to their platforms by individual users.

“Those are direct explicit threats against the big tech,” Bailey said.

Even before the court gets to whether the government overstepped its authority, the justices will have to decide whether the states and five plaintiffs had the legal standing to bring the case at all.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, in particular, appeared to struggle at whether there was enough evidence that the government had done anything to take down the content of the people who brought the case. She criticized Missouri and Louisiana’s brief for the court, saying it omitted information that changed the context of their claims.

“I don’t know what to make of this,” Sotomayor said, prompting an apology from Aguiñaga.