Supreme Court Rejects Challenge to Biden Administration’s Contacts With Social Media Companies

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The Supreme Court handed the Biden administration a major practical victory on Wednesday, rejecting a Republican challenge that sought to prevent the government from contacting social media platforms to combat what it said was misinformation. The court ruled that the states and users who had challenged those interactions had not suffered the sort of direct injury that gave them standing to sue. The decision, by a 6-to-3 vote, left for another day fundamental questions about what limits the First Amendment imposes on the government’s power to influence the technology companies that are the main gatekeepers of information in the internet era. The case arose from a barrage of communications from administration officials urging platforms to take down posts on topics like the coronavirus vaccine and claims of election fraud. The attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana, both Republicans, sued, along with three doctors, the owner of a right-wing website that frequently traffics in conspiracy theories and an activist concerned that Facebook had suppressed her posts on the supposed side effects of the coronavirus vaccine.