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SCOTUS Rules That US Government Can Continue Talking to Social Media Companies
- lesuorac 2y agoActual Ruling: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-411_3dq3.pdf https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-411_3dq3.pdf
- otterley 2y agoUgh. This headline sucks. SCOTUS didn't rule anything of the sort; they didn't get to the merits of the case. They dismissed the claim for lack of standing: "We begin--and end--with standing. At this stage, neither the individual nor the state plaintiffs have established standing to seek an injunction against any defendant. We therefore lack jurisdiction to reach the merits of the dispute."
- lesuorac 2y agoExcept they did. This ruling removes the injection prohibiting the USG from talking to social media companies. This detail is in the article. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murthy_v._Missouri https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murthy_v._Missouri
- sickofparadox 2y agoIt removes the injunction because they determined there wasn't standing, not because they affirmed the Executive's actions as legal. Those are two different things.
- GauntletWizard 2y agoThere could be no clearer standing than this case, consisting of several users who had their opinions censored and attorneys general representing the rights of the people. If neither group has standing, who does? This was a base act of legal buffoonery. It is transparently bullshit.
- otterley 2y agoFacebook or Twitter would have had standing, if they claimed injury due to perceived Government threats in reaction to their speech. Did you read the whole opinion? It's pretty coherent, and makes sense if you've ever taken a civil procedure course.
- lesuorac 2y agoThe lack of standing comes from the failure of the plaintiffs to mention specific actions. You can't just be like "FaceBook censored me because of the FBI". You have to actually make a claim like "My post from July 5th was removed by FaceBook because of an email written to FaceBook from the FBI on July 6th". Preferably with both the email and post as exhibits.
- otterley 2y agoWell, that's not quite true. You can claim that you have been dissuaded from exercising your First Amendment rights[1] in the future (for example, that you're afraid of publishing new material under threat of punishment). That's called a "chilling effect." The problem in this case is that no plaintiff could do even that and draw a plausible and clear causal connection between their fear and the actions of the Government. [1] The question of whether someone has a First Amendment right to make a social media post has not yet been clearly established, and the Court didn't get to this question in this case.
- Jiro 2y agoThat allows the government to censor at will by censoring on the policy level, by making Facebook adopt government-demanded policies. Since it is always possible that Facebook could have come up with the same policy anyway by coincidence, it's never possible to trace any specific act to the government censorship.
- otterley 2y agoOf course it’s possible. That’s what discovery is for. Internal emails were cited in this case as well. And if the Government had coerced Facebook in violation of its Constitutional rights, I’m sure Facebook would sue the Government and quite possibly prevail.
- jjulius 2y agoIt's not a "ruling", it's a "refusal to hear the case", which effectively removes the injunction. They made no comment on the legality of the administration's actions. Edit: jfc, lol @ the debate around whether or not to call it a "ruling". The government can continue to talk to social media companies for now regardless of whatever the hell you call it. I regret contributing to this lol.
- lesuorac 2y ago> 83 F. 4th 350, reversed and remanded. Is a ruling. It reverses the decision in "83 F. 4th 350" also known as Murthy v Missouri [1]. [1]: https://casetext.com/case/murthy-v-missouri-3 https://casetext.com/case/murthy-v-missouri-3
- otterley 2y agoIt indeed is a ruling, but it's not a ruling that "US Government Can Continue Talking to Social Media Companies." It's a ruling that this specific case cannot be heard as presented.
- chatmasta 2y agoIt’s a ruling against the injunction, not a ruling on the merits of the case.
- lesuorac 2y agoAnd the injunction prohibited the USG from talking to Social Medial Companies. This ruling removes the injunction, Therefore, SCOTUS rules that USG can talk to Social Media Companies.
- otterley 2y agoThat's not how lawyers think about this, and since this is a legal case, if they don't, neither should the rest of us.
- drewrv 2y agoStanding is just an excuse to punt. Lack of standing did not stop them in 303 Creative v Elenis, nor did it stop them in Biden v Nebraska.
- otterley 2y agoIn 303 Creative, standing is discussed in Part I(B). In Biden v. Nebraska, standing is exhaustively discussed in Part II.
- drewrv 2y ago303 Creative was not prosecuted under Colorado's law. They were not even asked to create a wedding website for a gay couple: https://newrepublic.com/article/173987/mysterious-case-fake-gay-marriage-website-real-straight-man-supreme-court https://newrepublic.com/article/173987/mysterious-case-fake-... In fact, there is no evidence they had ever built a wedding website: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/06/real-story-behind-gay-marriage-case.html https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/06/real-story-behin... So, we have someone who has never suffered a harm from the law, was under no risk of prosecution, and who had never even had the opportunity to violate the law. If this person has standing, then standing is meaningless. The fact that there's a blurb about it in a decision is irrelevant, does the court have a consistent philosophy on standing, or are they just winging it? It seems really obvious they're winging it.
- otterley 2y agoThe fact that they analyzed standing is very relevant from a legal and precedential standpoint. I’d like to see your legal analysis to see if you could do better.
- drewrv 2y agoIf their analysis is inconsistent and arbitrary then it’s worse than useless, it’s harmful. It’s not hard to do better. The legal analysis of “I’m just doing what I want based on vibes” would be better, because at least it would be honest!
- snowwrestler 2y agoThe headline is accurate, in that a Supreme Court ruling removed a constraint that was put in place by a lower court. That fact that the basis of the ruling was standing does not change its practical effect. And that is what news readers are primarily interested in.
- otterley 2y agoThe article is from WIRED, not WSJ. (I often disagree with WSJ but at least their hard news headlines are less misleading.)
- snowwrestler 2y agoI just mistyped, now edited to be more general.
- jcranmer 2y ago> SCOTUS didn't rule anything of the sort; they didn't get to the merits of the case. They dismissed the claim for lack of standing: Except that the lack of standing kind of necessarily implies the lack of merits. The allegations in the case where that the government improperly influenced the social media companies to suppress speech; the plaintiffs failed to demonstrate that their speech was suppressed as a result of this improper influence, and by doing so, they failed to reach standing. But if their speech wasn't suppressed by government influence, then there's no influence to be improper in the first place! If you actually go through the decision and read it through, including the footnotes, it's clear that the court is pretty skeptical of the actual merits as well. Only one of the plaintiffs was able to come close to showing government influence in their censorship, but that argument is pretty weak given that they were repeatedly censored before they alleged the government influence began!
- otterley 2y ago> the plaintiffs failed to demonstrate that their speech was suppressed as a result of this improper influence This isn't quite right and illustrates the subtleties involved in understanding these kinds of rulings. When evaluating standing, courts don't determine whether any claims made are true or not. They simply evaluate whether a cognizable claim is made that, if true, would constitute a redressable injury that is traceable to actions of the defendants. According to the Court, the plaintiffs didn't make any such claims, and that's why the case was dismissed for lack of standing. (Edited to remove a specific reference to the state plaintiffs.)
- jcranmer 2y agoThere's two sets of plaintiffs in the suit, the state plaintiffs and the private plaintiffs. The state plaintiffs alleged standing on the basis that they have an interest in making sure their citizens have a "right to listen", and this was yeeted almost perfunctorily (it's like two pages of the decision). The states' lack of standing is not the major holding of this decision. The private plaintiffs alleged standing on the basis that they were censored by the platforms as a result of the government's encouragement, and they were yeeted specifically because they failed to demonstrate any traceability of their censorship from the government's action. Yes, I read the ~38 page majority opinion. (I gave up on the dissent as not being worth my time).
- brookst 2y agoAs another commenter noted, they did no such thing. They ruled that the plaintiffs have no standing to challenge the practice. But how weird would it be if there was an industry segment the federal government was not allowed to talk to? The whole complaint seems like a thinly veiled attempt to say the federal government is not actually a government.
- garyfirestorm 2y agobasically saying the federal govt. shouldn't have an ability to communicate...
- chatmasta 2y agoThe complaint was about communication that coincides with implied threats or intimidation. The social media companies take down the alleged misinformation not because they want to, but “because of the implication” of what would happen if they did not. For example, the executive branch might promote some legislation that would be damaging to social media companies, and at the same time, send them requests to take down some posts. The social media companies comply because they want to be in the good graces of the White House while negotiating on the legislation. This is called “jawboning:” https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/informal-government-coercion-and-problem-jawboning https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/informal-government-coe...
- shadowgovt 2y agoSo is the issue that Twitter (X) would have to sue?
- otterley 2y agoI think that if Facebook et al. sued, standing would be clearly established, and the case would have proceeded very differently. Of course, they didn't. So some southern states decided they would try to intervene (while finding a few individuals to join to try to bolster their case), and ultimately failed.
- shadowgovt 2y agoSo it continues to be the case that the most effective avenue to get one's message out is to host one's own message. It's good to know the Fediverse at large (and Mastodon in particular) make this easier than ever. Perhaps this entire concern can be made moot by further adoption of decentralized technologies.
- otterley 2y agoThis is consistent with the design and spirit of the Internet, and in my opinion is how it should be.
- janalsncm 2y agoI just run my own website. It’s the original decentralized web. If I need to, I can share links on social media but I always own the content.
- hughesjj 2y agoImo the best way to get your message out is to have a better message
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]