Supreme Court to Rule on Social Media and First Amendment Concerns
By Movieguide® Contributor
The Supreme Court will soon field three cases related to politicians’ use of social media to decide what the First Amendment does and does not protect.
“Collectively, they are likely to have quite [a] dramatic effect on the digital public sphere,” said Jameel Jaffer, executive director of the Knight Firsts Amendment Institute at Columbia University.
The first case, which began this week, surrounds the question of whether elected officials are serving in their official capacities when interacting on social media. This is important as it would dictate whether elected officials are allowed to block followers on social media without violating the First Amendment.
The next case will decide social media platforms’ ability to block users who share contentious rhetoric on the site. Politicians have attacked platforms in the past for censoring their posts, leading to laws in Florida and Texas limiting social media platforms’ abilities to censor politicians.
Tech groups are now bringing these laws to the Supreme Court, asking for them to be struck down as a violation of the First Amendment. As private organizations, they argue, they should be able to better regulate the material on their site.
The final case considers the government’s ability to pressure social media platforms into removing posts on their sites. This was of special concern during the pandemic as the government asked platforms to censor posts that criticized its response to COVID-19.
These cases will mark the Supreme Court’s first real ruling on social media and free speech. While some of these questions have been asked for over a decade, the Supreme Court has not been equipped to answer them until recently, as many of the justices had been too old to truly understand the technology.
“Many of these cases talk about how social media is the modern public square to try to convey to the justices, who may not be as familiar with social media, just how important this is in the present day and age,” said Jenin Younes, a lawyer on one of the cases.
“I do think it can be hard for some people who don’t use it as much to grasp that this is where a lot of public discourse takes place,” she added.
With recent turnover on the court, however, the average age of the justices has come down significantly, with all four of the newest in their 50s. With the younger justices, the court can now address these issues, as its members regularly use the technology.
Movieguide® previously reported on Supreme Court cases:
Praying coach, Joe Kennedy, has been reinstated at his high school football job after winning his Supreme Court Case last June.
The assistant football coach was removed from his position in 2015 after silently praying at midfield following the conclusion of his games. Although Kennedy never asked or required students to join him, the school fired him over fears that allowing him to openly pray around students would have been seen as a government endorsement of religion.
After six years of legal battles, the case found itself in the Supreme Court, to decide if the had violated Kennedy’s right to free speech when it barred him from silently praying on the field after games, a practice inspired by FACING THE GIANTS.
The court ruled in Kennedy’s favor 6-3, stating Kennedy would be restored to “his previous position as assistant coach of the Bremerton High School football team on or before March 15, 2023.”
“Bremerton School District shall not interfere with or prohibit Kennedy from kneeling at midfield to engage in a brief, quiet, personal religious ritual during the period after a football game in which the coaching staff are free to attend to personal matters,” the court ruled.
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