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Post by Webster on Mar 15, 2024 16:44:30 GMT -5
(The Guardian) The supreme court will hear oral arguments on Monday in Murthy v Missouri, a case with the potential to radically redefine how the US government interacts with social media companies. The suit is the culmination of years of a Republican-backed legal campaign arguing that efforts by federal agencies and Joe Biden’s White House to reduce misinformation online constitute censorship. Central to the case is whether the White House violated free speech protections during the Covid-19 pandemic, when government officials requested that Twitter, Facebook and other social networks remove misinformation about the coronavirus. The lawsuit accuses the government of “coercing” tech platforms to change their policies, block content and suspend users. The complaint was filed by attorneys general in Louisiana and Missouri as well as rightwing individuals such as conspiracy site founder Jim Hoft. If the courts decide in their favor, the White House would be blocked from contacting social media companies, as happened when a lower court sided with the plaintiffs. The Biden administration has argued that officials did not coerce or threaten social media platforms. It also argues that federal agencies have routinely communicated with social media platforms about terrorist group organizing or foreign influence campaigns, which has prompted tech companies to voluntarily enforce their own policies that ban such content. -Read more: www.theguardian.com/law/2024/mar/15/supreme-court-social-media-case-Read more: www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/murthy-v-missouri-3/
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Post by Webster on Mar 18, 2024 17:58:10 GMT -5
(The Guardian)[ The supreme court will hear oral arguments on Monday in Murthy v Missouri, a case with the potential to radically redefine how the US government interacts with social media companies. Central to the case is whether the White House violated free speech protections during the Covid-19 pandemic, when government officials requested that Twitter, Facebook and other social networks remove misinformation about the coronavirus. The lawsuit accuses the government of “coercing” tech platforms to change their policies, block content and suspend users. The complaint was filed by attorneys general in Louisiana and Missouri as well as rightwing individuals such as the conspiracy theory site founder Jim Hoft. If the courts decide in their favor, the White House would be blocked from contacting social media companies, as happened when a lower court sided with the plaintiffs. The Biden administration has argued that officials did not coerce or threaten social media platforms. It also argues that federal agencies have routinely communicated with social media platforms about terrorist group organizing or foreign influence campaigns, which has prompted tech companies to voluntarily enforce their own policies that ban such content. The suit is the culmination of years of a Republican-backed legal campaign arguing that efforts by federal agencies and Joe Biden’s White House to reduce misinformation online constitute censorship.
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Post by Webster on Mar 18, 2024 19:05:29 GMT -5
(The Guardian) The supreme court heard oral arguments Monday in a case that could upend the federal government’s relationship with social media companies and with lies online. Plaintiffs in Murthy v Missouri argue that White House requests to take down coronavirus misinformation on Twitter and Facebook constitute illegal censorship in violation the first amendment. The arguments began with Brian Fletcher, the principal deputy solicitor general of the justice department, making an argument that none of the government’s communications crossed the line from persuasion into coercion. He also pushed back against descriptions of events in lower court rulings, stating that they were misleading or included quotations taken out of context. Fletcher said: When the government persuades a private party not to distribute or promote someone else’s speech, that’s not censorship, that’s persuading a private party to do something that they’re lawfully entitled to do.The justices, most prominently conservatives Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, questioned Fletcher on where exactly the line is between threatening companies and persuading them. Fletcher defended the government’s actions as part of its broader ability to try and reduce public harm. Fletcher said: The government can encourage parents to monitor their children’s cell phone usage or internet companies to watch out for child pornography on their platforms, even if the fourth amendment would prevent the government from doing that directly.
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