SCOTUS decision on social media propaganda by the govt

[Playa]

I do t understand this decision , specifically Comer’s reasoning that the plaintiffs had no standing. If American citizens who use social media have no standing, then who does? She also insisted that prior govt meddling in social media is not proof of future meddling….

from the news story…

The Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled in favor of the Biden administration in a challenge to its alleged coordination with social media companies, saying that the states who sued the administration lacked standing.
The case, Murthy v. Missouri, stems from a lawsuit brought by state attorneys general from Missouri and Louisiana that accused high-ranking government officials of working with giant social media companies "under the guise of combating misinformation" that ultimately led to censoring speech on topics that included Hunter Biden’s laptop, COVID-19 origins and the efficacy of face masks.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett, writing for the majority, said the plaintiffs lacked standing to bring their challenge.

The plaintiffs, without any concrete link between their injuries and the defendants’ conduct, ask us to conduct a review of the years-long communications between dozens of federal officials, across different agencies, with different social-media platforms, about different topics," she wrote.

"This Court’s standing doctrine prevents us from ‘exercis[ing such] general legal oversight’ of the other branches of Government. We therefore reverse the judgment of the Fifth Circuit and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion."

The vote was 6-3, with Justice Samuel Alito dissenting, joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch.
"The plaintiffs claim standing based on the ‘direct censorship’ of their own speech as well as their ‘right to listen’ to others who faced social-media censorship," Barrett wrote.
"Notably, both theories depend on the platform’s actions — yet the plaintiffs do not seek to enjoin the platforms from restricting any posts or accounts. They seek to enjoin Government agencies and officials from pressuring or encouraging the platforms to suppress protected speech in the future," she wrote, adding that the states' "alleged injuries" were of a "one-step-removed, anticipatory nature."

In a July 4 court order last year, U.S. District Court Judge Terry A. Doughty imposed the temporary injunction preventing White House and executive agency officials from meeting with tech companies about moderating content, arguing that such actions in the past were "likely" First Amendment violations.
"If the allegations made by Plaintiffs are true, the present case arguably involves the most massive attack against free speech in United States’ history," the injunction said. "In their attempts to suppress alleged disinformation, the Federal Government, and particularly the Defendants named here, are alleged to have blatantly ignored the First Amendment’s right to free speech."



The injunction also claimed that "the censorship alleged in this case almost exclusively targeted conservative speech," but that issues the case raises are "beyond party lines."
The Justice Department had argued that the temporary ban would cause "irreparable harm" because it may prevent the federal government from "working with social media companies on initiatives to prevent grave harm to the American people and our democratic processes."
Justice Alito, however, said that "if the lower courts’ assessment of the voluminous record is correct, this is one of the most important free speech cases to reach this Court in years."



"For months, high-ranking Government officials placed unrelenting pressure on Facebook to suppress Americans’ free speech. Because the Court unjustifiably refuses to address this serious threat to the First Amendment, I respectfully dissent," he said.
Barrett explained that "the plaintiffs rely on allegations of past Government censorship as evidence that future censorship is likely."
"But they fail, by and large, to link their past social-media restrictions to the defendants’ communications with the platforms. Thus, the events of the past do little to help any of the plaintiffs establish standing to seek an injunction to prevent future harms," she said.



"These past and threatened future injuries were caused by and traceable to censorship that the officials coerced, and the injunctive relief she sought was an available and suitable remedy," Alito countered, adding that the evidence was "more than sufficient" to establish the plaintiff's standing to sue.
"[A]nd consequently, we are obligated to tackle the free speech issue that the case presents," he added.
"The Court, however, shirks that duty and thus permits the successful campaign of coercion in this case to stand as an attractive model for future officials who want to control what the people say, hear, and think. That is regrettable," he said.


"What the officials did in this case was more subtle than the ham-handed censorship found to be unconstitutional in Vullo, but it was no less coercive," Alito continued, citing a recent First Amendment case decided earlier this term.


"And because of the perpetrators’ high positions, it was even more dangerous. It was blatantly unconstitutional, and the country may come to regret the Court’s failure to say so," he said.
"Officials who read today’s decision together with Vullo will get the message. If a coercive campaign is carried out with enough sophistication, it may get by. That is not a message this Court should send," he added.

[tvc184]

I will copy and paste this reply with permission from the original author, tvc184;

This is a really complex case one, not in understanding it but in how they came to the conclusion. Both sides make good arguments.

This is one of those cases in forums where people say, I want to go by what the Constitution says and precedent!!

At least up until they don’t like the decision. I don’t like this one but I get it.

In this case, Murthy v. Missouri, the Supreme Court did not say that the Biden administration was not guilty. In fact they said in various words that the administration is restricted from certain actions and may have been guilty.

Think of it no different than Miranda v. Arizona. Ernesto Miranda was accused of kidnapping a sexually assaulting a woman. Part of that trial was a confession that Miranda gave to the police. At that time the police were not required to read anyone their rights. Miranda claimed that his rights for violated because he thought he had to talk. When the Supreme Court ruled that Miranda won his case and the conviction was thrown out, they did not say that he was innocent of a horrific crime. The Supreme Court only ruled that from that going forward, the police had to prove that a person understood that they didn’t have to talk if they did not want to. So a man guilty of a terrible crime walked. And on an interesting twist, Arizona, tried him again without the confession and still got the conviction, sentencing Miranda for up to 30 years in prison. He was later murdered and they never caught the killer but had they done so, they would’ve had to read the killer the Miranda warning for killing Miranda.

So… winning a case doesn’t mean that you are innocent and that includes this case. It means the rules weren’t followed just as if the police took an in custody confession and the person was not given and/or did not understand his rights to remain silent and to have an attorney.

The first thing that Court looks at is standing. Do you have the right to sue in this case? It’s just like that absolutely stupid Texas law that came out about four years ago to try to stop abortions and to get around the Fourteenth Amendment and the Supreme Court. Texas said that any person in the state could sue a woman’s doctor for giving an abortion. So a 20 year old man in Amarillo could sue a doctor in Houston for performing an abortion on a woman who lived in Houston. That was even though the man never lived in Harris county and did not even know the woman. What if his right or standing to sue? There is none but it never made it to court. That was made a moot point when Roe v. Wade was thrown out not long afterwards by the Supreme Court. So standing comes down to, who has the right to sue.

For the Court to grant standing, it usually does so by asking, did the plaintiff (or appellant on appeal) suffered injury or would likely suffer injury? If you have not or will not likely suffer an injury, then you have no right to sue in that particular case. It does not matter how good your facts are. What matters is did you have the right to sue to begin with? In Miranda he suffered harm because he claimed to be sent to prison with an unconstitutional confession.

This case both answered “no” in standing because Missouri and Louisiana did not show how they would suffer harm and in the facts. By looking at the facts of this case, it sure seemed like the Supreme Court did not disagree that the Biden administration may have violated the First Amendment. The decision however described that when the attorneys for Missouri and Louisiana in oral arguments were asked a direct question, can you prove that the Biden administration stopped a particular piece of information from getting out, they had no evidence. It was speculation.

The problem seems from my reading the case that they almost needed a whistle blower to prove the case. We all know that Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. restricts free speech, but they are not the government. That was the whole Elon Musk deal with buying out Twitter. He got tired of a private company restricting speech, which they have the right, so he just bought the company.

The government in this case presented a fairly strong case that these platforms were already censoring things (I don’t think that we will disagree) that they didn’t like or that they Iclaimed were false or misinformation. Sure the Biden administration encouraged them during Covid (which this case was about), but Missouri and Louisiana could not show proof that any particular article or opinion was ordered to be removed. Again, those platforms were censoring long before Covid.

If I remember it correctly, Missouri and Louisiana only specifically mentioned Facebook and had no claims against the other platforms. So they asked for a broad sweeping decision to other platforms when they could only give speculation on Facebook.

The dissent by Alito, Gorsuch any Thomas (written by Alito) even said that there was a “perceived” restriction of speech. Csn you win on a perception?

Alito also brought up the very recent case discussed on TBH of NRA v. Vullo. That is where the state of New York specifically went to banks and insurance companies, and told them that if they did not quit backing the NRA, they would likely take action against them. In that case, the NRA have evidence that those conversations took place, and therefore prove their case. In this case Alito brings up Vullo but bases it on a perceived grievance and not specific facts. He is correct in my opinion but the facts won the day.

So the Biden administration won a narrow victory because of standing and also because Missouri and Louisiana had no specific facts to back up their claims.

And again, the Supreme Court did not say the Biden administration was not guilty. In fact, had Missouri and Louisiana brought up some actual facts, such as from a whistleblower, they would have likely won the case overwhelmingly.

In my opinion….