America's Talking - Supreme Court Justices Consider Whether Feds Can Regulate Speech on Social Media

Episode Date: March 23, 2024

(The Center Square) – The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments Monday in a case evaluating how the federal government censored Americans’ speech online, especially about COVID-19 and other controversial topics. During the arguments, justices seemed to express doubts about a prior ruling that limited federal cooperation and coercion of social media companies, particularly when the federal government pushes those companies to censor Americans’ speech. “My biggest concern is that your view has the First Amendment hamstringing the government in significant ways in most important time periods,” Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said during oral arguments for Murthy v. Missouri Monday. Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/america-in-focus/support Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello and welcome to America in Focus, powered by the Center Square. I'm Dan McAulb, chief content officer at Franklin News Foundation, publisher of the Center Square Newswire Service. We are recording this on Thursday, March 21st. The U.S. Supreme Court this week heard oral arguments in a case challenging the federal government's pushing social media sites to censor certain conservative content. The case centers around the Biden administration pressuring social media sites to mute conservative voices, questioning social media sites to mute conservative voices, questioning. the federal government's COVID-19 response and the efficacy of the COVID vaccine. Much of that conservative commentary turned out to be true. Also, tied to the Supreme Court case, or efforts by liberals to quash the Hunter Biden laptop story ahead of the 2020 presidential election. Liberals said the Hunter Biden laptop story was part of a Russian misinformation campaign, but it turns out the story was largely true. joining me to discuss, this is Casey Harper, Washington, D.C. Bureau Chief for the Center Square. Casey, you covered the Supreme Court hearing this week. Tell our listeners what you heard.

Yeah, I mean, we heard some interesting back and forth between Supreme Court justices and the relevant attorneys on what has become a crucial issue, especially in the post-COVID era, when it comes to social media censorship and the federal government. And so, you know, this issue really kicked off with the 2016 election. There was a lot of speculation and accusation and allegation that somehow maybe Russia and others were working online to sow disinformation and misinformation and misinformation to sway the election in Trump's favor. And that's what helped him beat Hillary. I think there was kind of an autopsy, a forensic analysis done when so many were surprised to see Hillary lose.

And so they were grasping for answers. at how this could have happened. And this became one of the themes that some form of, you know, social media was distorted and used in a way that, you know, influenced the election negatively. There was a long investigation into Russia's role in that election, which was largely debunked. There is some evidence, but largely debunked. But that question really arose there. And it hit the, you know, gasoline was thrown on that fire when in 2020, the pandemic happened.

Of course, you know, it's very very very. vivid in our minds now. But at the time, there was a lot of information coming out. There were mandates coming down. There were vaccine mandates. A lot of questions about how COVID was spread, where it came from, do masks work? Is the vaccine safe? And we didn't really have a lot of evidence in science. I mean, we had experts saying things, but you know, you can't, it takes years and years to do research and studies on some of the efficacy of these things. And we just didn't have that time. And so people were making decisions. And online, there was a lot of questioning, a lot of, you know, Vax things, a lot of anti-mandate, a lot of questioning of different policies, and governments

around the world reacted, you know, some more harshly than others. But here in the U.S., we now have clear evidence. This is not conspiracy. This is not hypothesis. We know for a fact that the federal government pressured social media companies to take down certain viewpoints to silence certain viewpoints to censor American citizens. For example, one most common is for, you know, anti-vax, you know, people who are skeptical or questioning the COVID vaccine. The, the federal government, you know, Department of Homeland Security FBI was pressuring and filing requests with companies like Facebook to remove posts, you know, companies like Twitter working with them. And so once this has all come out, it's brought this all to a head. How much can the federal

government do? And what should be allowed there? And so it's worked this way through the courts. A lower court ruling very severely limited how much the federal government is allowed to work with companies in this way to censor Americans. But now it's before the Supreme Court. And we're going to find out, you know, what is this role? What can this relationship be like in a more definitive way? Casey, what was interesting to me from your coverage is that while this has been an extremely, you know, conservative issue, blaming the liberal Biden administration for censorship, etc. What was interesting to me is that even the most conservative justices on the court,

as you wrote, seemed to express doubts about that prior ruling that you just mentioned, limiting federal cooperation and coercion of social media companies. Tell us about the line of questioning that you observed. Yeah, I mean, so the lower court ruling was more strict. It was a very strict ruling. It said that it seemed to say, you know, and these rulings have to be interpreted, but it seemed to say that almost no cooperation or pressure from the federal government can ever happen. And so what happened in this oral arguments is, well, what about this exception?

What about this exception, you know? And you could easily come up with exceptions that are not political, that are not the Hunter Biden laptop story example, that are not COVID. You know, you could say something about if the FBI finds someone who is selling drugs on Facebook, right? Can the FBI tell Facebook, hey, take this post down? Right. I mean, so there's, you know, there are examples you could easily come up with that are not political per se, where you could make an argument that the federal government should be allowed to communicate with the social media companies to tell them to take post down. Now, setting that aside, there is more the ideological argument. One quote from Justice Katangi Brown Jackson that got a lot of flag was she said,

My biggest concern is that your view has the First Amendment hamstringing the government in significant ways in most important time periods. You know, that went. I'm just bringing it up because it did go viral a little bit when people said, well, yeah, of course, that's the whole point of the First Amendment is to hamstring the government and to protect Americans from infringement of their rights. So there is a practical argument of, well, what about this? But then there's also the ideological argument of how to what degree can the federal government censor Americans? And to what degree should they be? As Jackson put it, Hamstrung. Elon Musk, who purchased Twitter now and renamed it to X a while ago, he's been talking about these censorship efforts, essentially since he took over the social media outlet.

And these are the same kinds of, what he had actually. of course, to the government's communication with formerly Twitter during these time periods. And his stated purpose for purchasing the social media site was to end that censorship, particularly of conservative speech. So it does seem like there's some subtleties here in the law. I mean, how does the Supreme Court address this? I know I'm asking you to speculate. I mean, what do you see happening here?

Well, I mean, I think we're going to see real precedent be said. I think for all their concerns about some of these more specific examples, I still think the court will be largely skeptical, at the very least, at the very least, to the degree to which the federal government acted on the Hunter Biden laptop on, you know, COVID, can it be narrowed so it's only strictly law enforcement issues, not political, not these other things. But the thing I would, I would, you know, just add as we run low on time is, is that. that this is not one-off things that happened in the Trump era or COVID's a one-time example. You may remember, Dan, the Department of Homeland Security created a disinformation governance board. Right. Yeah, they had DHS, Department of Homeland Security, which is the greatest fear of everyone who opposed the Patriot Act, you know, 15, 20 years ago. They created the DHS Disinformation Board to address, you know, the threat of information. And then where is this information coming from from American citizens, mostly online?

And so there was a whole part of the government that was being set up targeted at Americans sharing speech. And so I think that's the kind of thing that I expect to be reined in by this ruling. But of course, it's all speculation. It is in the court's hands. And I hope they'll be guided to the right decision. Casey, thank you for joining us today. We expect a ruling from the Supreme Court sometime in May or June. Listeners can keep up with those rulings and more at the centersquare.com.