Of immediate significance, the decision means that the Department of Homeland Security may continue to flag posts to social media companies such as Facebook and X that it believes may be the work of foreign agents seeking to disrupt this year’s presidential race. Rather than delving into the weighty First Amendment questions raised by the case, the court ruled that the state and social media users who challenged the Biden administration did not have standing to sue.
The case challenged the US government’s ability to shape public debates about major issues that once played out in newspaper op-ed pages but that now largely unfold online. And it questioned the government’s power to partner with private-sector organizations to combat large-scale societal threats.