Can the federal government flex its muscle to influence censorship policies at social media firms? If so, how much? What if national security is at risk? And what if some of the censored speech turns out to be accurate?
Those were among the questions the Supreme Court weighed as it heard arguments on March 18 in the Murthy v. Missouri case, in which plaintiffs argued that President Joe Biden’s White House forced Facebook, X, and other platforms to censor speech — and controversial political speech in particular.
Most of the censored social media posts came from conservative or conservative-aligned figures, often from those who questioned COVID-19 orthodoxy about vaccines, lockdowns, and the lab leak origin theory of the disease. A federal district court judge barred the Biden administration from contacting certain tech firms last summer
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