Supreme Court to weigh whether Covid misinformation is protected speech

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.

Chainweasel,

If yelling “Fire!” In a crowded theater is not protected speech then any kind of healthcare misinformation shouldn’t be either.
The whole reason you can’t yell “Fire!” In a crowded theater is because people could get hurt or killed.
Covid misinformation also gets people killed.
Seems pretty clear to me.

ptz,
@ptz@dubvee.org avatar

SCOTUS: 5 of us concur, and it is clear that yelling “fire” in a crowded theater must be considered protected speech.

youngGoku,

Yup. Stacked court means it’s okay to tell people to inject bleach to cure disease.

Pyr_Pressure,

But can you yell “There’s no fire!” In a crowded theater that has a fire?

themadcodger,
themadcodger avatar

That's a privilege reserved only for Rene Magritte.

Kage520,

How convincing are you?

NovaPrime,
@NovaPrime@lemmy.ml avatar

For what it’s worth, yelling “Fire” in a crowded theater is not unprotected speech in and of itself. It became a popular analogy in US jurisprudence after being used by Justice Holmes in Schenck v. United States, but it had nothing to do with the question, holding, or even the dicta of the case itself (it was more or less just an off the cuff analogy). This was later tested and clarified by the Branderburg standard which held that for speech to cross the line to incitement (and thus not be constitutionally protected), it must be “directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action” and “likely to incite or produce such action.” Under that standard, the covid argument would fail.

That being said, many municipalities have disorderly conduct and disturbing the peace laws that will likely get you in trouble if you went around yelling “fire” in crowded spaces (especially dif you actually incited a stampede or a crowd crush, which could then have you on the hook for more serious charges).

ptz,
@ptz@dubvee.org avatar

Great. What’s next on the docket? Deciding whether falsely yelling “fire” in a crowded theater is also protected speech?

ozoned,

Pretty sure it’s denying coup attempts.

Bonesince1997,

That’s exactly where I was thinking with this. How about loudly yelling bomb in an airport?? Getting people killed with your mouth seems to be OK a lot of the time. Encouraged even.

Witchfire,
@Witchfire@lemmy.world avatar

They’re planning to overturn the bump stock ban, which is what the Nevada shooter used to kill so many people. It makes a semiautomatic gun function similarly to an automatic gun.

callouscomic,

If it is then I should be allowed to say anything I want on airplanes.

LocoOhNo,

My boss is a massive Covid denier. The local radio station today (in the deep South) read a report that Covid cases were higher in the South and the Midwest.

He had some smartass comment about masks and I reminded him that the places where mask mandates were lifted had higher rates of Covid. He dismissed the report out of hand and called the report, from his own source, to be “propaganda.”

I legitimately believe that if people want to not wear a mask they forfeit medical treatment. Let Darwin solve this for all.

Cuberoot,

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.

DoucheBagMcSwag, (edited )

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 and a HoAx

Same thing with the 2020 election. The same party also says 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

The TLDR is that you would have a “Ministry of Truth.”

SCOTUS will likely allow this because of the Pandora’s box they would open.

reverendsteveii,

right now the only thing the supreme court determines is whose check cleared. they’re openly, blatantly corrupt and they advertise themselves as for sale.

whoelectroplateuntil,

The COVID-related national emergency declared on 3/13/20 thru 5/22/23 gave the government no extra abilities to regulate the media as regards said national emergency during the period of said national emergency? Considering how broad, sweeping, and poorly-written US emergency powers are, I highly doubt the government was operating outside its lawful authority by telling media and search engines to take down literal killer misinfo.

paddirn,

Is it a common thing for Supreme Courts to cause this much trouble (not just in the US)? I feel like I’ve read about other countries having similar-ish troubles with their Supreme Courts clashing with the Executive/Legislative branches or just coming up with fucked up rulings that undermine the proper functioning of the government. I know we’re supposed to have a government with checks and balances, but are Supreme Courts just completely antithetical to the idea of democracy?

dhork,

It seems like the core of this is whether Freedom of Speech equates to Freedom to Lie. That is a slippery slope to go down, though, because there is a fine line between lying and simply believing something that is wrong.

Do Social Media companies have any responsibility at all to make sure the information people share on their platforms is truthful and isn’t harmful? Who gets to decide all that, anyway?

I have a feeling that Truth itself is on trial here. Judging by all the “alternative facts” shaping political discourse these days, I am not confident that the verdict is going to go over well.

cryptosporidium140,

deleted_by_author

    •
    Badeendje,
    @Badeendje@lemmy.world avatar

    Why? They will need to back their claims with, you know, evidence.

    Tolookah,

    Like a map of a hurricane veering off course?

    Badeendje,
    @Badeendje@lemmy.world avatar

    If you want to claim different from what a well established world renowned weather organisation predicts you better be even better more renowned, not some random shmo with a lot of theories and no proof.

    Can they be wrong, that’s how predictions work they have a degree of certainty. But it’s nonsense to give some theory by someone the same credence as a world leading authority.

    cryptosporidium140,

    deleted_by_author

    •
    Badeendje,
    @Badeendje@lemmy.world avatar

    Hence the regulations. Its bullshit that there needs to be balanced reporting of viewpoints and opinions.

    No, the opinion of a dance teacher on covid and covid regulations is not of the same weight as that of specialists in Infectious diseases.

    Same shit happened with climate change, letting mouthpieces of the fossil fuel industry on the air and giving them the same credence as people to spent their life researching the subject in a field with many peers.

    And the fact someone has a PhD in an unrelated field does also not make them credible.

    winterayars,

    If evidence was at all convincing we would not be in this situation.

    veniasilente,

    On the other, giving any government the power to determine what is and isn’t a lie scares the shit out of me.

    Don’t governments already have and exercise this power in relevant fields? I certainly can’t lie on my taxes, and I certainly can’t use any of my internet identities for social security stuff other than the issued by the state, so.

    cryptosporidium140,

    deleted_by_author

    •
    veniasilente,

    I think things like taxes are more binary in terms of whether you lied. Either the numbers match or they don’t.

    Covid is quite binary too: either it exists and people are sick and dying / already died, or it doesn’t and everyone is faking and the “dead” are pulling insurance scams. Sounds quite obvious and testable to me!

    Covid misinformation is essentially down to who you think is telling the truth.

    It’s simple: the one telling the truth is the one we know closest to the truth now. In a decade or two, when history changes, we can adjust on the go. Back in the 50s every doctor said bacon was healthy and eggs were the devil; in the 60s it was the turn of milk and bacon, respectively; then in the 70s, eggs and cheese. And so on. Sometimes you have to just be able to operate legally with information that is patently true and peer-reviewed.

    cryptosporidium140,

    deleted_by_author

    •
    veniasilente,

    To me honestly it’s quite simple: like any other personal right, my “freedom of speech” ends where other people’s rights begin. If what I’m saying both is patently untrue and deals a net harm for society - be it because of what I’m saying it or because of how I’m saying it, then it can’t be protected. It would be backwards for the purpose of a State if it was.

    So for your example of misinformation that we should punish people for, it’s quite patent-as-untrue stuff that leads to harm, such as “drinking bleach will immunize you from Covid!” (leads people to self-harm), or “it’s because of the niggas / gays / asians / anything non-Christian living in your neighbourhood” (leads people to cause harm to others). Something like “Covid doesn’t exist”, while patently untrue, does not invite harm in any way that I see as proportionally punishable (but for comparison “let’s organize to evade vaccinations because Covid doesn’t exist” does invite harm to others, so it should be punishable).

    Then again this all assumes it’s only about government prosecution. XKCD “show the door” applies here for any private party who feels they are given harm by some nutjob announcing that Covid doesn’t exist and trying to convince my grandma to drink bleach over Instagram, and there’s no “but muh freedom of peach” complain to take about that.

    ArbiterXero,

    The only sensible take.

    Sadly I think that allowing people to spread lies is a necessity. Yelling “fire” in a crowded theatre clearly is over the line….

    Perhaps the line is at misinformation that is intended to do direct harm?

    So illegal to say “drink bleach” but not illegal to say “Covid is a hoax”

    I’m not sure, but that’s the best line in the sand I can think of without giving too much power to governments, or allowing too much harm from a lie.

    Badeendje,
    @Badeendje@lemmy.world avatar

    Intended will do all of the lifting there… it encourages people to yell nonsense without any investigation. That way it can never be claimed they should have known better.

    ArbiterXero,

    Agreed. You’ll have to prove that the person knows (or reasonably should have known) that his words were going to cause great harm to someone. Not unlike telling someone to “kill themselves” where we already have some established laws/rules etc…

    lolcatnip,

    Are you scared of courts? Because they’re a lost if the government whose job is specifically to decide who’s trying the truth.

    cryptosporidium140,

    deleted_by_author

    •
    lolcatnip,

    The difference is juries are required to pay attention to the evidence presented to them, and court proceedings ensure they aren’t exposed to one side of the issue they’re supposed to decide.

    FlyingSquid,
    @FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

    Republicans will find that “freedom of speech means freedom to lie,” if that’s what SCOTUS decides, will come back to majorly bite them in the ass. Because they’re far from the only ones capable of lying.

    ZoopZeZoop,

    But they are currently the ones most willing.

    FlyingSquid,
    @FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

    Yep, until they find it can be used against them even more effectively than they can use them against others. Then they will be the first to scream about how unfair it all is.

    athos77,

    While that's true, they're also the only ones with an entire nationwide media ecosystem - broadcast tv (Sinclair), cable (Fox, OAN, Newsmax), radio (conservative talk radio), newspapers, etc - that's entirely willing to back up whatever the conservative narrative of the day is. I mean, we laugh at them for having such a distorted view of reality, but they're very media-captured.

    lolcatnip,

    When the truth is on your side, the right to lie really isn’t all that helpful.

    FlyingSquid,
    @FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

    It’s always helpful to find a way to smear your opponent. And if it’s legal for you to make an AI video of your opponent, say, smoking meth… why not? It’s legal.

    Jimmyeatsausage,

    Except Republican voters wouldn’t care if “their guy” was doing meth…or raping people or killing people or lying or stealing or anything else. Dems are disowning folks like Al Franken for an old photo of a pervy joke and the presumptive nominee for Republicans is a twice-impeached, 91-times indicted huckster with a history of infidelity and screwing over the working class and some pretty damning evidence of actual pedophilia and at least fantasizing about incest. And uh…oh yeah, insurrection.

    When you try to smear shit, the shit doesn’t get dirty… you do.

    Pyr_Pressure,

    I think if someone is questioned as to their source for something they post online, and refuses to or can’t provide it, there should be grounds to report the comment for removal by admins.

    Even if they provide a shit source, it can stay up, because at least people can tell that they got it from a shit source.

    SkybreakerEngineer,

    Fraud has been illegal for quite a while

    neptune,

    You have to gain from lies to be fraud

    agitatedpotato,

    If only political capital counted as gains, we could jail almost every politician overnight. Also COVID misinfo would count then.

    Jimmyeatsausage,

    And which party do you really think is going to start arresting their opposition for political gain?

    My guess is "not the party that’s worried about misinformation. "

    agitatedpotato,

    Political parties don’t arrest people, they’d try to bring up charges. They’re doing that right now with the President AND his son. It’s already happening. If only there was a way to prosecute that fraud they’re pushing for political gain . . .

    reverendsteveii,

    There’s another prong to the issue though, and that’s “Does any communication from the government amount to coercion?” Remember that the first amendment protects speech from laws restricting it, but not necessarily requests that other viewpoints be elevated instead. I think the court will find in favor of the right because that’s who takes the justices on $1000/day vacations so the law doesn’t matter, but no one was ever forced to do anything in the case being heard here and that’s the main thrust of the Biden admin’s argument.

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • politics@lemmy.world
  • GTA5RPClips
  • DreamBathrooms
  • thenastyranch
  • magazineikmin
  • osvaldo12
  • ethstaker
  • Youngstown
  • mdbf
  • slotface
  • rosin
  • ngwrru68w68
  • kavyap
  • tester
  • cisconetworking
  • megavids
  • InstantRegret
  • khanakhh
  • cubers
  • everett
  • Durango
  • tacticalgear
  • Leos
  • modclub
  • normalnudes
  • provamag3
  • anitta
  • JUstTest
  • lostlight
  • All magazines
    •