The Supreme Court reportedly rejected a lawsuit on Wednesday alleging that Biden administration officials unlawfully pressured social-media platforms to remove content labeled as disinformation, ruling that neither the two states nor the five private parties who brought the claim had the right to have their allegations heard by a judge.
The lawsuit, led by Republican state attorneys general in Missouri and Louisiana, had fared well in lower courts, resulting in an unprecedented injunction barring top government officials from communicating with social media companies about removing “content containing protected free speech” from their platforms.
The states claimed that for years, executive branch officials had pressed digital platforms to stifle conservative speech.
That campaign reached a fever pitch in 2021, they claimed, when President Biden pushed to sell Covid-19 vaccinations and rebut former President Donald Trump’s assertions that the election was rigged.
The Supreme Court, in a 6-3 ruling written by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, stated that the plaintiffs failed to demonstrate that they were personally harmed—or faced the possibility of future harm—by the alleged activities of Biden administration officials.
The verdict cut across ideological boundaries. Barrett’s two fellow conservatives, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh, supported her decision, as did the court’s three liberal justices, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
Three other conservatives disagreed. Justice Samuel Alito, joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch, ruled the government’s actions were clearly illegal.
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