(TheRedWire.com) – On Wednesday, the Supreme Court rejected the GOP-led state challenge to the Biden administration’s communication with social media companies to address the misinformation surrounding the pandemic.
The final 6-3 decision did not deal with the First Amendment issues that are considered to be at the center of this challenge. The case had been filed by two GOP attorney generals and private parties who were found to not have the right or legal standing to bring this case forward.
Writing for the majority, Justice Amy Coney Barrett noted that the plaintiffs did not have any link between the conduct of the defendants and the injuries. She noted that they had called them to perform oversight over the communications, and argued that the Court has long abstained from exercising oversight over other Government branches.
Conservative Justice Samual Alito in his dissenting opinion joined Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas noting that his fellow justices had failed to make a decision on the First Amendment argument relating to this case. Alito had written that the court shirked its duty and had allowed for such a coercion campaign to take place in the future. He continued by noting that this was regrettable.
Barrett, however, argued that social media platforms have for years targeted misleading speech and false claims and that such moves have been made from as early as 2016. She noted that their work against public health falsities also dates to 2018 which is long before the 2020 presidential election and the pandemic.
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