Murthy v. Missouri
Murthy v. Missouri is a landmark United States Supreme Court case decided on June 26, 2024, addressing allegations that senior Biden administration officials, including White House staff, the Surgeon General, and FBI agents, violated the First Amendment by pressuring social media platforms to suppress user content labeled as misinformation on COVID-19 policies and the 2020 election.[1] The 6–3 majority opinion, authored by Justice Barrett, held that the plaintiffs—Missouri and Louisiana, along with individual epidemiologists, journalists, and a parent whose posts were removed—lacked Article III standing due to insufficient traceability of past harms to government actions and speculative future injury risks.[1] The dispute arose amid extensive federal communications with companies like Facebook, YouTube, and X (formerly Twitter), where officials flagged posts for removal or demotion, sometimes expressing frustration over non-compliance and hinting at regulatory consequences such as antitrust scrutiny or Section 230 reforms.[1] Plaintiffs contended this constituted coercive "jawboning," transforming platforms' editorial decisions into state action subject to First Amendment scrutiny, supported by evidence from discovery including internal emails showing platforms yielding after repeated entreaties.[1] Lower courts, including the Western District of Louisiana and the Fifth Circuit, found preliminary evidence of likely coercion and issued injunctions barring such influence, though the latter narrowed the scope to targeted officials.[1] While the majority emphasized platforms' independent content moderation choices and attenuated causation—citing platforms' pre-existing policies and voluntary changes post-2022—the dissent by Justice Alito, joined by Justices Thomas and Gorsuch, argued the record demonstrated a "coordinated campaign" of pressure amounting to censorship, with standing established for at least one plaintiff via direct platform suppressions linked to government demands.[1] The ruling avoided merits resolution, leaving unresolved whether such government-platform interactions cross constitutional lines, but highlighted ongoing debates over public-private speech regulation amid documented surges in federal-platform contacts during the pandemic.[1]Background and Context
Pre-Lawsuit Government-Social Media Interactions
Following the inauguration of President Joe Biden on January 20, 2021, White House officials promptly contacted Twitter to demand the removal of a tweet by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. criticizing COVID-19 vaccine safety, with an email urging action "ASAP" just three days into the administration.[2] This early interaction set a pattern of direct communications aimed at content moderation, particularly on health-related topics.[3] In March 2021, White House Digital Strategy Director Rob Flaherty emailed Facebook executives expressing frustration over vaccine hesitancy content, demanding greater transparency on suppression efforts and criticizing the platform's handling of discouraging posts.[3] Facebook responded on March 21 by outlining policy adjustments, including outright removal of vaccine misinformation and algorithmic demotion of content questioning vaccination without violating explicit rules.[3] Similar pressures extended to YouTube, where Flaherty emailed on April 12 inquiring how the platform could "crack down on vaccine misinformation" and proposing collaborations to target "borderline content."[2] A follow-up meeting on April 21 emphasized White House concerns at senior levels, prompting YouTube to schedule additional briefings and refine its policies.[2] By April 2021, White House Senior Advisor Andy Slavitt contacted Facebook regarding a viral meme likening vaccines to asbestos, expressing outrage and demanding its removal during a call, while pushing for broader censorship measures.[2] Flaherty followed up on April 9 and 14, questioning the prominence of posts like one by Tucker Carlson doubting vaccine efficacy and urging limits on viral dissemination across platforms including WhatsApp.[3] On May 10, Facebook detailed steps to boost vaccine acceptance, but Flaherty critiqued persistent promotion of anti-vaccine pages.[3] The U.S. Surgeon General's Office amplified these efforts in July 2021, issuing an advisory on July 15 declaring health misinformation, especially on COVID-19 and vaccines, an "urgent threat" and calling on platforms to enhance detection, removal, and demotion of such content.[4] Surgeon General Vivek Murthy met with Facebook on August 6, followed by an email requesting a two-week update on misinformation actions, which led to Facebook implementing four aggressive policy options by August 19 to combat vaccine hesitancy.[2] Publicly, President Biden stated on July 16 that social media platforms like Facebook were "killing people" by allowing COVID-19 misinformation to persist.[3] Parallel FBI engagements with Twitter, ongoing since at least 2018, intensified pre-2022 with regular meetings to flag potential election-related misinformation, including foreign influence operations, though specific Biden-era demands focused on domestic narratives like vaccine skepticism and post-2020 election claims.[5] These interactions, documented in internal platform records, involved repeated flagging of content for review or suppression without formal legal process.[2]Emergence of Censorship Allegations
Allegations of federal government censorship on social media platforms first gained prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021, as officials from agencies including the White House, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) repeatedly contacted companies such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube to flag and remove content deemed misinformation on topics like vaccine efficacy, mask mandates, and virus origins.[6] On July 16, 2021, President Joe Biden publicly stated that social media platforms were "killing people" by failing to adequately suppress vaccine hesitancy content, prompting platforms to adjust algorithms and policies in response.[7] These interactions escalated into claims of coercion when internal records later showed persistent demands; for instance, in an August 26, 2024, letter to the House Judiciary Committee, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed that senior Biden administration officials had pressured the company for months in 2021 to censor COVID-19-related posts, including those containing humor or satire, and that Meta had demoted such content despite internal reservations about overreach.[8] [9] Parallel concerns emerged over election-related suppression, particularly Twitter's October 19, 2020, decision to block sharing of the New York Post's report on Hunter Biden's laptop contents, which the platform justified under its hacked materials policy amid prior FBI briefings warning of potential Russian disinformation operations—briefings that plaintiffs later argued misled companies into preemptively censoring authentic material.[10] The scope of alleged government influence broadened with the December 2022 release of the Twitter Files, a series of internal documents published by Elon Musk after acquiring the platform, which documented over 10,000 federal requests from agencies including the FBI and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to moderate content since at least 2018.[11] Independent journalists reviewing the files, such as Matt Taibbi, highlighted the FBI's role in weekly meetings with Twitter executives, maintenance of a dedicated portal for content flags, and payments exceeding $3.4 million to the company in 2020 for processing such requests, often targeting conservative-leaning posts on COVID-19 policies and 2020 election claims.[12] These revelations, corroborated by Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests and depositions from officials like CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, who admitted to daily communications pressuring platforms, fueled accusations that voluntary cooperation masked unconstitutional jawboning, where public and private threats induced self-censorship to avoid regulatory reprisals like antitrust scrutiny or Section 230 reforms.[6] Congressional hearings, including those by the House Judiciary Committee's Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government starting in 2023, amplified the claims by subpoenaing records showing White House demands for specific user deplatforming and algorithmic changes, attributing the pattern to a systemic effort rather than isolated advisories.[13] While platforms maintained that many actions aligned with independent policies, the documented volume of communications—far exceeding prior administrations—shifted public and legal discourse toward viewing them as coercive, setting the stage for litigation asserting First Amendment violations.[11]Plaintiffs' Case
State and Individual Plaintiffs
The states of Missouri and Louisiana initiated the lawsuit on May 5, 2022, led by then-Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt and Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry, alleging that federal officials coerced social media platforms to suppress speech critical of government policies, including on COVID-19 vaccines, election integrity, and climate change.[14][15] Missouri claimed harms to its officials' and citizens' speech, such as platform demotions affecting state communications, while Louisiana cited instances like Facebook flagging a state representative's post on children and COVID-19 vaccines.[1] Both states argued these actions violated the First Amendment by turning private moderation into state action through government pressure.[1] The individual plaintiffs comprised five social media users whose content faced removal, demotion, or restrictions, which they attributed to federal influence on platforms: three physicians—Jayanta Bhattacharya (Stanford epidemiologist), Martin Kulldorff (former Harvard epidemiologist), and Aaron Kheriaty (former UC Irvine psychiatrist)—who alleged censorship of COVID-19-related views on natural immunity, vaccine efficacy, and lockdowns starting in 2021 across Twitter and LinkedIn.[1][16] Jim Hoft, owner of The Gateway Pundit news website, claimed platforms suppressed election-fraud allegations, including Twitter's removal of a Hunter Biden laptop story in December 2020.[1] Jill Hines, a healthcare activist and co-director of Health Freedom Louisiana opposing vaccine and mask mandates, reported Facebook deletions of groups, page restrictions, and reduced visibility for posts on Pfizer trial data and myocarditis risks from October 2020 through 2023.[1] These plaintiffs sought injunctive relief to halt ongoing government-platform communications perceived as coercive, asserting traceable injuries from self-censorship fears and diminished audience reach, though the Supreme Court later ruled none demonstrated Article III standing for such broad injunctions.[1] Their claims drew on discovery revealing emails and meetings between officials and platforms, but focused here on personal and professional impacts from alleged viewpoint discrimination.[15]Core Legal Claims and Evidence of Coercion
The plaintiffs asserted that federal officials, including those from the White House, FBI, CDC, and Surgeon General's office, violated the First Amendment by coercing or significantly encouraging social media platforms to suppress protected speech on topics such as COVID-19 vaccines, election integrity, and the Hunter Biden laptop story.[15][1] This alleged "jawboning" transformed private moderation decisions into state action, as platforms altered policies and removed content in response to government pressure rather than independent judgment.[17] The claims centered on a coordinated campaign involving thousands of communications, public threats, and private demands, which the district court deemed likely to succeed on the merits for establishing coercion or significant encouragement.[15] Evidence of White House coercion included repeated emails demanding "immediate" action, such as a January 23, 2021, directive to Twitter to remove a Robert F. Kennedy Jr. tweet, and a February 6, 2021, request to suspend a parody account, resolved within 45 minutes.[15] Officials like Rob Flaherty accused Facebook of "hiding the ball" on vaccine hesitancy in March 2021 and proposed "stronger demotions" for anti-vaccine content, while referencing potential Section 230 reforms and antitrust scrutiny.[1][17] President Biden's July 16, 2021, statement that platforms were "killing people" by allowing misinformation prompted further demands, with internal Facebook documents showing a shift in COVID-19 post removal rates from 0.2% to 94% following White House pressure.[15] The Fifth Circuit characterized this as "unrelenting" pressure crossing into coercion through implied threats of adverse consequences.[17] FBI actions involved flagging content for removal, with agent Elvis Chan contacting platforms 1-5 times monthly, resulting in content takedowns in approximately 50% of cases, including pre-2022 election misinformation on poll hours.[15] Pre-2020 election warnings about Russian "hack-and-leak" operations influenced Twitter's policies, contributing to the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story on October 14, 2020, after FBI misleading briefings in December 2019.[1][17] The district court cited these as examples of law enforcement authority leveraging inherent power to induce compliance without explicit threats.[15] CDC and NIAID evidence included flagging specific posts, such as 16 instances on May 6, 2021, and providing "misinformation hot topics" lists that platforms adopted for labeling and removal.[15] Dr. Anthony Fauci and Francis Collins coordinated to "take down" the Great Barrington Declaration in October 2020, with Collins emailing for a "devastating" response.[15] The Surgeon General's July 15, 2021, advisory demanded algorithm redesigns and consequences for "super-spreaders," paired with private follow-ups expressing disappointment.[1] CISA functioned as a "switchboard" for flagging via the Election Integrity Partnership starting July 9, 2020.[15] Lower courts found these efforts, particularly by the White House and FBI, constituted coercion, while CDC actions amounted to significant encouragement through authoritative guidance.[17]Lower Court Proceedings
District Court Filing and Discovery
The lawsuit, originally titled Missouri v. Biden, was filed on May 5, 2022, in the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana (case number 3:22-cv-01213) by the attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana, alleging that senior Biden administration officials and federal agencies had violated the First Amendment by coercing social media platforms to suppress speech on topics including COVID-19 origins, vaccine efficacy, election integrity, and the Hunter Biden laptop story.[18][14][15] Individual plaintiffs, including epidemiologist Dr. Aaron Kheriaty, journalist Jill Sanborn, and others who claimed personal censorship of their views, joined the suit on August 2, 2022.[1] The district court, presided over by Judge Terry A. Doughty, permitted limited and expedited discovery focused on communications between government officials and social media companies to support the plaintiffs' motion for a preliminary injunction, overriding initial government objections that such discovery was unduly burdensome.[19][20] Plaintiffs sought and obtained production of thousands of emails, internal documents, and records of meetings, revealing patterns of persistent government flagging of content for removal or demotion, including directives from White House officials like Rob Flaherty to Facebook and Twitter executives.[21][20] Discovery included motions for depositions of key figures, such as White House digital strategy director Rob Flaherty, whose communications showed repeated demands for platforms to censor specific posts, with plaintiffs arguing these demonstrated coercive pressure rather than mere persuasion.[22] The government resisted broader depositions, claiming executive privilege and irrelevance, but the court authorized targeted written discovery and some oral examinations, yielding evidence of over 10,000 flagged items and platform responsiveness to agency complaints, which the plaintiffs cited as establishing a censorship enterprise.[23][20] This phase produced a voluminous record, including FBI briefings to platforms on "hack-and-leak" operations and CDC collaborations with Twitter on vaccine misinformation, which Judge Doughty later deemed sufficient to infer likely coercion in his July 4, 2023, preliminary injunction ruling.[1][15]Preliminary Injunction and Findings
On July 4, 2023, United States District Judge Terry A. Doughty of the Western District of Louisiana granted the plaintiffs' motion for a preliminary injunction in Missouri v. Biden, finding a substantial likelihood of success on the merits of their First Amendment claims against certain federal defendants.[15] The court determined that defendants, including officials from the White House, Surgeon General's office, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and State Department, had engaged in coercion or significant encouragement of social media platforms to suppress protected speech, particularly content challenging COVID-19 policies, the Hunter Biden laptop story, and 2020 election integrity.[15] This conduct, the court concluded, constituted viewpoint discrimination subject to strict scrutiny, as it targeted conservative-leaning viewpoints without adequate justification.[15] The court's findings rested on extensive discovery evidence, including over 1,400 pages of documents, emails, and depositions revealing persistent government pressure.[15] For instance, White House Deputy Assistant to the President Rob Flaherty emailed platforms on January 23, 2021, demanding immediate action to remove a tweet by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., criticizing vaccines, and followed up aggressively when compliance lagged.[15] NIAID Director Anthony Fauci and NIH Director Francis Collins coordinated a "devastating take down" of the Great Barrington Declaration advocating focused protection over lockdowns, labeling its authors as fringe epidemiologists in emails and public statements.[15] FBI agents, including San Francisco field office head Elvis Chan, regularly flagged content for removal, achieving a reported 50% success rate in censorship requests, while misleading platforms about the authenticity of the Hunter Biden laptop story prior to the 2020 election.[15] CISA operated as a "switchboard" for misinformation reports, often prioritizing domestic conservative content under the guise of protecting "cognitive infrastructure."[15] Surgeon General Vivek Murthy issued advisories and Requests for Information post-July 2021 to amplify pressure on platforms to curb COVID-19 "misinformation," coordinated with entities like Stanford's Virality Project.[15] The court rejected defendants' claims of mere persuasion, citing the platforms' policy changes and content removals directly following these communications as evidence of effective coercion blurring public-private lines.[15] Judge Doughty applied the standard four-factor test for preliminary relief, concluding that plaintiffs faced irreparable harm from ongoing suppression of their speech and associational rights, as monetary damages could not redress constitutional violations.[15] The balance of equities and public interest favored injunction, as the government's interest in combating misinformation did not override First Amendment protections against compelled silence.[15] The court characterized the alleged scheme as "an almost dystopian scenario" and "the most massive attack against free speech in United States' history," emphasizing empirical patterns of entwinement over isolated jawboning.[15] The injunction prohibited the covered defendants—enumerated as President Joseph R. Biden Jr., White House officials including Karine Jean-Pierre and Rob Flaherty, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra, NIAID's Fauci, CDC representatives, FBI and DOJ officials like Lauren Dehmlow, CISA Director Jen Easterly, and State Department personnel—from taking actions to coerce or significantly encourage social media firms to suppress viewpoint-protected speech.[15] Specific bans included:- Communicating with platforms to flag or request removal/suppression of disfavored content.
- Convening meetings or engaging in persistent follow-ups aimed at policy changes facilitating censorship.
- Threatening adverse consequences, such as antitrust scrutiny or Section 230 reforms, to induce compliance.