During oral arguments on Monday, both liberal and conservative justices on the Supreme Court appeared wary of imposing broad limits on how the government can communicate with social media companies about problematic content it thinks should be removed. The case at issue is called Murthy v.
Missouri, and it asks the court to determine whether the Biden administration’s communications with platforms coerced the companies to take down content, like misinformation about covid vaccines, thereby violating the First Amendment. It also asks the court to consider whether the government’s encouragement to take down such posts actually transformed the platforms themselves into state actors. But several justices seemed skeptical of the arguments from Louisiana Solicitor General Benjamin Aguiñaga, who argued on behalf of the states and individual plaintiffs who challenged the Biden administration on its communications with social media companies. The justices appeared to worry about the far-reaching consequences of limiting the ways the government is able to speak with tech platforms. In the case originally filed in May 2022, the attorneys general for Louisiana and Missouri accused the Biden administration of coercing platforms to censor viewpoints they disagreed with. They had secured wins from the lower courts, which issued and upheld an injunction on the government’s communications with platforms, though the appeals court narrowed its scop