As social media sites were flooded with misleading posts about vaccine safety, mask effectiveness, Covid-19’s origins and federal shutdowns, Biden officials urged platforms to pull down posts, delete accounts, and amplify correct information.
Now the Supreme Court could decide whether the government violated Americans’ First Amendment rights with those actions — and dictate a new era for what role, if any, officials can play in combating misinformation on social media.
The Supreme Court is set to hear arguments next month in a case that could have sweeping ramifications for federal health agencies’ communications in particular. Murthy v. Missouri alleges that federal officials coerced social media and search giants like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Google to remove or downgrade posts that questioned vaccine safety, Covid’s origins, or shutdown measures. Biden lawyers argue that officials made requests but never forced companies.
Government defenders say that if the Court limits the government’s power, it could hamstring agencies scrambling to achieve higher vaccination rates and other critical public health initiatives. Critics argue that federal public health officials — already in the throes of national distrust and apathy — never should have tried to remove misleading posts in the first place.
Misinformation deserves no free speech protection.
However, what remedies are proposed in the event that a government official orders the removal of misinformation that later turns out to be a valid theory. Even if the evidence supporting the theory was unknown at the time of publication, if it was just a kook with a lucky guess, there should be some serious consequences for censoring accidental truth. Experts have been wrong in the past and might be wrong again.
The issue is…is that “misinformation” terminology is decided by who’s in charge.
While COVID 19 is very real on one said, If a certain insurrectionist supporting new Confederate party was in power, they would say anything that mentions COVID is misinformation cause it’s not rEaL
Same thing with the 2020 election. They also say that Joe Biden winning the 2020 election is misinformation and “fake news.” How about the existence of LGBTQ individuals? This could be weieled to subjugate others with extreme prejudice