Supreme Court Wary of Limiting Federal Contact With Social Media Companies

Supreme Court justices appeared wary of limiting the government’s ability to communicate with social media platforms in a major online speech case on Monday. 

For Context: In July 2023, a federal judge ruled that the Biden administration violated the First Amendment by “coercing” or “significantly encouraging” certain content moderation decisions by social media companies, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. The judge’s ruling limited communications between several federal agencies and social media companies. The Biden administration challenged the ruling, but an appeals court largely upheld it. 

The Details: Some justices critiqued the claim against the government as overly broad. Justice Elena Kagan compared the issue to governmental communication with journalists, which she said “happens literally thousands of times a day.” Justice Samuel Alito also compared the case to the news media, but said he could not “imagine federal officials taking that approach to the print media.” Justice Brett Kavanaugh noted that “the platforms say no all the time to the government.” 

‘Jawboning’: The case involves a practice called “jawboning.” Experts from Columbia University describe jawboning as “informal government efforts to persuade, cajole, or strong-arm private platforms to change their content-moderation practices.”

How the Media Covered It: While most coverage appeared to frame the justices as “skeptical” or “wary,” some right-rated outlets framed them as “divided” and focused on remarks by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. Some partisan indicators were present, like NPR’s (Lean Left bias) description of attempts to “combat disinformation online” and the New York Post’s (Lean Right bias) use of the word “censor” instead of “moderate.”