Murthy v. Missouri

In early 2020, social-media companies like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube began applying their longstanding content-moderation policies against users posting false or misleading information about the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2020 presidential election. The White House, Surgeon General, and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (defendants) communicated with the companies regarding COVID-19 and, primarily in 2021, encouraged the companies to suppress certain content and increase transparency. The communications regarding COVID-19 decreased in 2022 as the pandemic declined. The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (defendants) notified the companies of posts containing false election information and warned of foreign-influence campaigns. Missouri, Louisiana, and five social-media users (collectively, users) (plaintiffs) sued various executive-branch agencies and officials (collectively, the government) (defendants), alleging that the government violated the First Amendment by pressuring the companies to suppress protected speech. The users claimed that the government pressure resulted in both direct censorship and interference with their right to read others’ content. The district court issued a preliminary injunction preventing the government from encouraging or pressuring the companies to delete, suppress, or reduce content containing protected speech. The Fifth Circuit modified the injunction to specifically prohibit coercion or significant encouragement by the government. The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari.