In this file photo taken on June 24, 2016, people are reflected in the windows of the Nasdaq offices in Times Square in New York. The exchange is party to one of two lawsuits that could extend constitutional speech restrictions to private enterprise, which would be a mistake, writes Paulette Chu Miniter.
heard by the Supreme Court in March, individual challengers along with the states of Missouri and Louisiana argue that social-media companies violated free-speech rights by removing or labeling certain posts about COVID-19. Essentially, they’re saying government pressure on social media companies transformed the companies’ steps to moderate COVID content into “state action” that violated users’ First Amendment rights.Private companies ordinarily can’t be sued for violating the Constitution.
The court has sometimes said that “state action” might exist in other contexts. But the court has largely derived its “tests” for state action from Jim Crow and segregation-era cases. The statute that currently lets people sue state officials for constitutional violations emerged from the. Congress intended for this statute to help enforce Reconstruction.
Segregation was a unique evil embedded in the social fabric of many states. The logic that underlies the segregation cases needn’t be strained to fit different fact patterns with no relation to the injustices of that era.The good news is that during Murthy’s oral argument in March, multiple justices signaled they’re skeptical of such efforts.