SCOTUS Must Stop Government-Tech Collusion

The government should not be able to accomplish indirectly what the Constitution prevents it from doing directly.

Next month, the Supreme Court hears argument in the biggest social-media case it’s had yet. The case, Murthy v. Missouri, involves, in the words of the district court that first took it up, “the most massive attack against free speech in United States’ history.”

Missouri, Louisiana, and other state, individual, and associational plaintiffs have uncovered substantial evidence of the federal government coercing and otherwise pressuring social media companies to take down constitutionally protected speech. Following July 2021 revelations by the White House press secretary that federal officials “are in regular touch with these social media platforms” and pushing the platforms to take down constitutionally protected speech, the plaintiffs sued in May 2022 and obtained more than 20,000 pages of documents in discovery that showed repeated, systematic instances of the government using strong-arm tactics to pressure tech companies into taking down speech.

For example, after badgering one social-media company for what the White House viewed as insufficient action, the national digital strategy director emailed the company to state that his concern was “shared at the highest (and I mean the highest) levels of the WH [White House].” Censored topics included “racial justice, the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the return of U.S. [s]upport of Ukraine.”