Washington, DC…Argued March 18, 2024—Decided June 26, 2024. Under their longstanding content-moderation policies, social-media platforms have taken a range of actions to suppress certain categories of speech, including speech they judge to be false or misleading. In 2020, with the outbreak of COVID–19, the platforms announced that they would enforce these policies against users who post false or misleading content about the pandemic. The platforms also applied misinformation policies during the 2020 election season. During that period, various federal officials regularly spoke with the platforms about COVID–19 and election-related misinformation. For example, White House officials publicly and privately called on the platforms to do more to address vaccine misinformation.

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Surgeon General Vivek Murthy issued a health advisory that encouraged the platforms to take steps to prevent COVID–19 misinformation “from taking hold.” The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention alerted the platforms to COVID–19 misinformation trends and flagged example posts. The Federal Bureau of Investigation and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency communicated with the platforms about election-related misinformation in advance of the 2020 Presidential election and the 2022 midterms. Respondents are two States and five individual social-media users who sued dozens of Executive Branch officials and agencies, alleging that the Government pressured the platforms to censor their speech in violation of the First Amendment. Following extensive discovery, the District Court issued a preliminary injunction. The Fifth Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part. The court held that both the state plaintiffs and the individual plaintiffs had Article III standing to seeking junctive relief. On the merits, the court held that the Government.

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