The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments Monday in a case involving the First Amendment and whether or not the federal government can force social media platforms to censor speech.
The case stems from a 2022 lawsuit brought by attorneys general from Missouri and Louisiana that accuses the federal government of coercing and colluding with big tech social media companies to violate Americans' right to free speech.
"This is about the government bullying Big Tech platforms into submission so that they can take down speech that they don't approve of or push narratives that they do approve of," Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill told Fox News following Monday's hearing.
According to the lawsuit, government officials engaged in a "relentless pressure campaign" against social media companies to remove certain posts with disfavored viewpoints "under the guise of combating misinformation" during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the suit contends the government "almost exclusively targeted conservative speech" -- from the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines and face masks, to the integrity of the 2020 presidential election.
Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey called it "the most important First Amendment case" in history.
"My office brought this lawsuit to halt the disgusting silencing of millions of Americans by the Biden Administration," Bailey said in a statement. "We feel confident after today's arguments, and look forward to reminding the nation that the First Amendment still means something in this country."
Bailey said the case highlights "over 1,400 facts from more than 20,000 pages of evidence exposing the vast censorship enterprise coordinated across multiples agencies within the federal government" that has "stifled debate and criticism of government policy on social media about some of the most pressing issues of our time."
"We must build a wall of separation between tech and state to preserve our First Amendment right to free, fair, and open debate," Bailey said.
In one example of censorship, the lawsuit claims Facebook suppressed the Hunter Biden laptop story -- which was real and not mere Russian disinformation prior to the 2020 election -- at the demand of the White House, the FBI, and other federal agents even though the information did not violate its policies and ordinarily would not have been suppressed.
Similarly, Facebook removed content discouraging vaccines as "a way to deescalate" after President Joe Biden accused social media companies of "killing people," according to the suit.
"When you read between the lines, what was happening was that the companies were feeling enormous pressure from the White House, and they were caving to that pressure. And the result of that pressure was censoring certain viewpoints," lawyer Jenin Younes told NPR. "We're talking about the government going after all major platforms and trying to get them to censor ... entire points of view."
The government has denied the allegations, saying it would violate the constitution to "punish or threaten to punish the media or other intermediaries for disseminating disfavored speech." Noting the "fundamental distinction between persuasion and coercion," the government contends that remaining free to communicate with social media companies about elections and other issues is critical to American democracy.
Last September, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a broad ruling in the case that banned key government officials in the White House, the Surgeon General's Office, the FBI, DHS and CDC from contacting social media companies about moderating content. That ruling was put on hold in October so the Supreme Court could examine the case.