Conservatives are fuming after the Supreme Court tossed a case that would have prevented government collusion with Big Tech to censor speech.
Trump appointed judge Amy Coney Barrett wrote the majority opinion, while justice Samuel Alito fired off an outraged dissent.
On Wednesday SCOTUS dismissed claims that the Biden administration unlawfully pressured social media companies to remove contentious content, NBC News reported.
The court overturned an injunction that, if implemented, would have restricted interactions between government officials and social media companies on various issues.
The court, in a shocking 6-3 vote, ruled that the plaintiffs lacked standing to sue because they did not sufficiently allege that the content moderation in question resulted from government actions.
Notably justices Brett Kavanaugh and Barrett were on the majority side, while the dissenters included Alito, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the ruling will help the Biden administration “continue our important work with technology companies to protect the safety and security of the American people.”
She also blasted Republicans for their history of “attacks on public officials who engaged in critical work to keep Americans safe.”
Barrett noted in her opinion that social media platforms routinely moderated content even before the alleged coercion occurred.
“In fact, the platforms, acting independently, had strengthened their pre-existing content moderation policies before the government defendants got involved,” she said.
Barrett also wrote there was not enough evidence to justify a sweeping injunction, despite it showing government officials “played a role” in moderation choices.
Alito, however, blasted the government’s actions as “blatantly unconstitutional,” dubbing the case “one of the most important free speech cases to reach this court in years.”
He added, in contrast to what Barrett said, that the “evidence was more than sufficient.”
Part of Justice Alito’s scathing dissent read, “If the lower courts’ assessment of the voluminous record is correct, this is one of the most important free speech cases to reach this Court in years…”
“Of course, purely private entities like newspapers are not subject to the First Amendment, and as a result, they may publish or decline to publish whatever they wish.”
“But government officials may not coerce private entities to suppress speech, see National Rifle Association of America v. Vullo, 602 U. S. 175 (2024), and that is what happened in this case…”
Alito said during a later point of his dissent: “The Court, however, shirks that duty and thus permits the successful campaign of coercion in this case to stand as an attractive model for future officials who want to control what the people say, hear, and think.
Critics echoed a similar sentiment to Alito following the news. “The Supreme Court has ruled that, practically, the government can continue pressuring social media companies to censor Americans,” said Glenn Beck.
“This is an absolute gut punch,” he continued, to which Auron MacIntyre added, “The SC sidesteps the issue of social media censorship right before election season assuring that the administration will collude with tech companies to manipulate the election.”
The post Justice Alito Fires Off Scathing Dissent as SCOTUS Tosses Case That Would Prevent Gov. From Coercing Big Tech Censorship appeared first on Resist the Mainstream.
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Author: Jordyn M.
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