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Murthy v. Missouri
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Murthy v. Missouri
Murthy v. Missouri, 603 U.S. 43 (2024), originally filed as Missouri v. Biden, was a case in the Supreme Court of the United States involving the First Amendment, the federal government, and social media. The states of Missouri and Louisiana, led by Missouri's then Attorney General Eric Schmitt, filed suit against the U.S. government in the Western District of Louisiana. They claimed that the federal government pressured social media companies to censor conservative views and criticism of the Biden administration in violation of the right to freedom of expression. The government said it had only made requests, not demands, that social media operators remove misinformation.
On July 4, 2023, Judge Terry A. Doughty issued a preliminary injunction prohibiting several agencies and members of the Biden administration from contacting social media services to request the blocking or other moderation of content, with exceptions for material involving illegal activity. On appeal, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals found that there had been some coercion in the government's contact with social media companies in violation of the First Amendment, but significantly narrowed Doughty's injunction.
The U.S. Supreme Court initially stayed the Fifth Circuit's order, then granted review of the case by writ of certiorari. In oral arguments, the justices questioned whether the evidence substantiated claims of state coercion against social media companies. On June 26, 2024, the Court ruled 6–3 that the states lacked standing to sue because they failed to demonstrate substantial risk of redressable injury traceable to government action.
Since around 2020, then-Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt had been filing numerous lawsuits against the Biden administration, with a total of 26 suits as of October 2022. According to Schmitt's senate campaign website, these suits were filed to hold the Biden administration accountable, while Schmitt later said "The Attorney General's Office standing in between Missourians and a radical, overreaching government is a hallmark of federalism, and states have a vital duty to keep the federal government in check." Targets of Schmitt's lawsuits included the administration's policies on oil and gas production, Biden's planned debt forgiveness of student loans, and mask mandates during the COVID-19 pandemic. Missouri v. Biden was one of several high-profile lawsuits Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt filed against the Biden administration.
In 2022, Elon Musk bought Twitter and significantly altered the way it operated. He also selected specific independent journalists to release the "Twitter Files", a series of internal communications that Musk and the journalists assert show that parts of the U.S. government were working with Twitter to suppress free speech related to election fraud and misinformation about the pandemic. While legal analysts, speaking with The New York Times, believed that the steps Twitter took to moderate content after contact by the U.S. government were not censorship, many Republicans believed the Twitter Files proved their views were being censored. The Republican-controlled House of Representatives held a set of hearings in March 2023 about the Biden administration "weaponizing" social media for its own purposes. Schmitt (now a U.S. senator) and Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry (now the governor of Louisiana) were among those who testified before the committee with information from their case's discovery process, bringing their ongoing lawsuit greater public attention.
The lawsuit alleges that President Joe Biden and his administration were "working with social media giants such as Meta, Twitter, and YouTube to censor and suppress free speech, including truthful information, related to COVID-19, election integrity, and other topics, under the guise of combating 'misinformation'." The lawsuit was co-filed with Louisiana's Attorney General Jeff Landry in May 2022 in the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana. Additional plaintiffs were added several months later, including Jim Hoft, owner of The Gateway Pundit, a conservative publication, and Jay Bhattacharya and Martin Kulldorff, academics who co-authored the Great Barrington Declaration, which questioned the government's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The plaintiffs obtained subpoenas in October and November 2022 from former and current members of the Biden administration, including Anthony Fauci, who served as Chief Medical Advisor to the President, and White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. The government attempted to block these deposition requests, but only a few such requests were granted. Fauci attended a deposition in November 2022 and said he favored spreading accurate information, which Schmitt claimed proved that social media censored content.
Hearings for the case were held in May 2023. Judge Doughty issued his ruling on July 4, 2023, issuing a preliminary injunction against several Biden administration officials from contacting social media services for "the purpose of urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner the removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech." In his 155-page ruling, Doughty wrote: "The Plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the merits in establishing that the Government has used its power to silence the opposition. Opposition to COVID-19 vaccines; opposition to COVID-19 masking and lockdowns; opposition to the lab-leak theory of COVID-19; opposition to the validity of the 2020 election; statements that the Hunter Biden laptop story was true; and opposition to policies of the government officials in power. All were suppressed. It is quite telling that each example or category of suppressed speech was conservative in nature. This targeted suppression of conservative ideas is a perfect example of viewpoint discrimination of political speech. American citizens have the right to engage in free debate about the significant issues affecting the country." He continued: "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 plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the merits in establishing that the government has used its power to silence the opposition."
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Murthy v. Missouri
Murthy v. Missouri, 603 U.S. 43 (2024), originally filed as Missouri v. Biden, was a case in the Supreme Court of the United States involving the First Amendment, the federal government, and social media. The states of Missouri and Louisiana, led by Missouri's then Attorney General Eric Schmitt, filed suit against the U.S. government in the Western District of Louisiana. They claimed that the federal government pressured social media companies to censor conservative views and criticism of the Biden administration in violation of the right to freedom of expression. The government said it had only made requests, not demands, that social media operators remove misinformation.
On July 4, 2023, Judge Terry A. Doughty issued a preliminary injunction prohibiting several agencies and members of the Biden administration from contacting social media services to request the blocking or other moderation of content, with exceptions for material involving illegal activity. On appeal, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals found that there had been some coercion in the government's contact with social media companies in violation of the First Amendment, but significantly narrowed Doughty's injunction.
The U.S. Supreme Court initially stayed the Fifth Circuit's order, then granted review of the case by writ of certiorari. In oral arguments, the justices questioned whether the evidence substantiated claims of state coercion against social media companies. On June 26, 2024, the Court ruled 6–3 that the states lacked standing to sue because they failed to demonstrate substantial risk of redressable injury traceable to government action.
Since around 2020, then-Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt had been filing numerous lawsuits against the Biden administration, with a total of 26 suits as of October 2022. According to Schmitt's senate campaign website, these suits were filed to hold the Biden administration accountable, while Schmitt later said "The Attorney General's Office standing in between Missourians and a radical, overreaching government is a hallmark of federalism, and states have a vital duty to keep the federal government in check." Targets of Schmitt's lawsuits included the administration's policies on oil and gas production, Biden's planned debt forgiveness of student loans, and mask mandates during the COVID-19 pandemic. Missouri v. Biden was one of several high-profile lawsuits Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt filed against the Biden administration.
In 2022, Elon Musk bought Twitter and significantly altered the way it operated. He also selected specific independent journalists to release the "Twitter Files", a series of internal communications that Musk and the journalists assert show that parts of the U.S. government were working with Twitter to suppress free speech related to election fraud and misinformation about the pandemic. While legal analysts, speaking with The New York Times, believed that the steps Twitter took to moderate content after contact by the U.S. government were not censorship, many Republicans believed the Twitter Files proved their views were being censored. The Republican-controlled House of Representatives held a set of hearings in March 2023 about the Biden administration "weaponizing" social media for its own purposes. Schmitt (now a U.S. senator) and Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry (now the governor of Louisiana) were among those who testified before the committee with information from their case's discovery process, bringing their ongoing lawsuit greater public attention.
The lawsuit alleges that President Joe Biden and his administration were "working with social media giants such as Meta, Twitter, and YouTube to censor and suppress free speech, including truthful information, related to COVID-19, election integrity, and other topics, under the guise of combating 'misinformation'." The lawsuit was co-filed with Louisiana's Attorney General Jeff Landry in May 2022 in the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana. Additional plaintiffs were added several months later, including Jim Hoft, owner of The Gateway Pundit, a conservative publication, and Jay Bhattacharya and Martin Kulldorff, academics who co-authored the Great Barrington Declaration, which questioned the government's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The plaintiffs obtained subpoenas in October and November 2022 from former and current members of the Biden administration, including Anthony Fauci, who served as Chief Medical Advisor to the President, and White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. The government attempted to block these deposition requests, but only a few such requests were granted. Fauci attended a deposition in November 2022 and said he favored spreading accurate information, which Schmitt claimed proved that social media censored content.
Hearings for the case were held in May 2023. Judge Doughty issued his ruling on July 4, 2023, issuing a preliminary injunction against several Biden administration officials from contacting social media services for "the purpose of urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner the removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech." In his 155-page ruling, Doughty wrote: "The Plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the merits in establishing that the Government has used its power to silence the opposition. Opposition to COVID-19 vaccines; opposition to COVID-19 masking and lockdowns; opposition to the lab-leak theory of COVID-19; opposition to the validity of the 2020 election; statements that the Hunter Biden laptop story was true; and opposition to policies of the government officials in power. All were suppressed. It is quite telling that each example or category of suppressed speech was conservative in nature. This targeted suppression of conservative ideas is a perfect example of viewpoint discrimination of political speech. American citizens have the right to engage in free debate about the significant issues affecting the country." He continued: "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 plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the merits in establishing that the government has used its power to silence the opposition."