Posted on 06/26/2024 6:29:24 AM PDT by CFW
The Supreme Court of the United States will be issuing Opinions today beginning at 10:00 a.m. Attorneys with scotusblog will be live-blogging from the press room and I will be posting the Opinions of the Court here. A list of all the cases from the October 2023 cases is listed here: October 2023 term. A short descriptive of the issue(s) before the court is included. If the case has already been decided that fact is indicated as well.
(Excerpt) Read more at scotusblog.com ...
The vote is 6-3, with Alito dissenting joined by Thomas and Gorsuch.
Not good at all. I expressed my doubts about Barrett in an earlier thread.
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-411_3dq3.pdf
The vote is 6-3, with Alito dissenting joined by Thomas and Gorsuch.
This is the case about social media “jawboning” — the government’s communications with social media companies during the 2020 election season and COVID-19 pandemic. The court holds that the challengers — two states and five social-media users — do not have standing — that is, a legal right to sue.
No standing ... Roberts’ favored avoidance ploy.
This is another decision reversing the Fifth Circuit, which held that the communications by governmental officials with social media platforms made the government officials responsible for the platforms’ content-moderation decisions. “The Fifth Circuit,” Barrett writes, “was wrong to do so.”
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So now government agencies can censor by proxy!
It took them these many months to determine standing?
So right here before an election, the government can censor information via social media.
Call me nuts, but this decision may augur well for the pending immunity and J6 cases. It’ll make the Roberts court appear more “balanced” and even-handed when they drop the hammer tomorrow or Friday. Again, just speculation.
Roberts had Barrett to play the no-standing card.
It took them these many months to determine standing?
Yeah, that doesn’t make sense. I bet there was some “jawboning” going on at the Court and a couple of justices moved from one side to the other late in the game.
From the ruling:
The challengers contend that the restrictions that they experienced in the past on social media platforms could be attributed to the defendants and that the platforms will continue to censor their speech. But the court rejects that, saying that the “platforms had independent incentives to moderate content and often exercised their own judgment. To be sure, the record reflects that the Government defendants played a role in at least some of the platforms’ moderation choices. But the Fifth Circuit, by attributing every platform decision at least in part to the defendants, glossed over complexities in the evidence.”
Not a bad assumption, though.
I don’t see how the SCOTUS could come to any conclusion other than that the US government should have absolutely no role whatsoever in telling Big Tech who to censor or ban given the US government’s regulatory power over Big Tech. A “suggestion” from the federal government is no “suggestion” at all and everybody knows it.
The Fifth Circuit was also wrong, the court says, in treating the challengers, defendants, and social media platforms “each as a unified whole.” The challengers needed to show that they were injured with regard to each platform and each defendant.
Alito dissent says that if the lower courts are correct in assessing the “voluminous record,” “this is one of the most important free speech cases to reach this Court in years.”
Thanks for the ping!
He’s right, of course.
It’s the only thing that makes sense, since it doesn’t take months to evaluate standing (in the Murphy v. Missouri decision).
Utterly ridiculous. Absolutely awful ruling.
What they are saying is that the federal government can lean on media companies to censor and ban their political opponents and nobody can do anything about it.
It took them these many months to determine standing?
Agreed. Why did they take the case if there was a potential standing issue?
Well, at least its not a decision, and could be repackaged and brought back.
We have the second and final opinion, in Snyder v. US. It is by Justice Kavanaugh, and the vote is again 6-3. Jackson dissents, joined by Sotomayor and Kagan.
Bttt
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