States and individuals sued numerous federal officials for violating their First Amendment speech rights by pressuring social-media platforms to suppress their posts. While lower courts ruled for the plaintiffs, six Justices held that they failed to show they had legal standing to sue. Plaintiffs must show that a “particular defendant pressured a particular platform to censor a particular topic before that platform suppressed a particular plaintiff’s speech on that topic,” explains Justice Amy Coney Barrett in the majority opinion.
She writes that “the platforms moderated similar content long before any of the Government defendants engaged in the challenged conduct” and “continued to exercise their independent judgment.” She was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts along with Justice Brett Kavanaugh and the three liberal Justices.
The majority rebukes lower courts for glossing over “complexities” in the evidence. “Different groups of defendants communicated with different platforms, about different topics, at different times,” Justice Barrett writes, adding that “the links must be evaluated in light of the platform’s independent incentives to moderate content.”