For doctors like Eileen Barrett, a pending Supreme Court case challenging the government's ability to communicate with social media companies is not primarily a fight over the fraught politics of online speech. Rather, they say, it is a matter of life and death.
“I have seen countless statements that are at best problematic and at worst outright misinformation that I fear terribly are causing harm to patients,” said Barrett, who chairs the board of regents of the American College of Physicians. . “We have all cared for someone who died from the flu. And now we have all taken care of the people who have died from Covid.”
Biden administration officials have for years persuaded social media platforms like Facebook and X to remove posts that include misinformation about vaccines, the Covid-19 pandemic and the 2020 election, among other things.
But the Supreme Court must now decide whether those efforts go too far; In other words, when the government veers into social media censorship that violates the First Amendment.
Because it is important: The case could prove pivotal to the 2024 election. Its outcome could determine whether the Department of Homeland Security can legally flag posts to social media companies that may be the work of foreign disinformation agents seeking to disrupt the race. Blocking that line of communication would undo years of collaboration that began in response to explosive revelations that Russia attempted to meddle in the 2016 U.S. election.
Keep reading on the case of social networks.
