Supreme Court tackles government coercion claims in social media and NRA cases
NBCMar 23
SCOTUS Hears Case About Biden Admin. and Social Media Firms
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The Facts
The US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) heard arguments on Monday surrounding a case that claims the Biden admin. violated its bounds by coercing social media platforms to remove certain content. However, the justices seemed skeptical of the arguments against the administration.
The case, Murphy v. Missouri, was brought by Missouri and Louisiana, who argue that the White House violated the 1st Amendment by pressuring platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter to remove 'disinformation' regarding election integrity and COVID.
The Spin
Democratic narrative
It seems like the Supreme Court, even with its conservative majority, is poised to uphold the government's right to communicate with social media platforms regarding misinformation. Issues like COVID and election denialism proved to be extremely dangerous in recent years, and social media platforms made a priority of cracking down on such disinformation. The government has a clear national security interest in preventing lies from spreading online as conspiracy theories have provoked insurrections and medical disasters.
Republican narrative
There's no doubt the Biden administration used its power to coerce social media platforms into censoring speech it did not like, which is a clear violation of the 1st Amendment. The Democratic Party and big tech have been tied at the hip for years, and it's clear to see that the world's largest companies do the bidding of their friends in Washington. Conservatives have been silenced for simply questioning the efficacy of the COVID shot or asking how Biden received 81M votes, and the White House is responsible for this violation of free speech. SCOTUS must prevent the government from colluding with big tech.
