FACT CHECK: No, SCOTUS Did Not Allow Biden To Force X To Remove Posts
BREAKING: The US supreme court Just allowed President Biden to Force Elon Musk’s Twitter/X to Remove misinformation on platform before the Election. pic.twitter.com/f9YrJ1rw0V
— PoliticsVideoChannel (@politvidchannel) October 9, 2024
Verdict: False
The Supreme Court did not allow Biden to demand Elon Musk’s social media platform remove posts.
Fact Check:
On June 26, the nation’s highest court issued a ruling that threw out a lawsuit seeking to curtail government influence on digital content, per the Associated Press. The 6-3 ruling found that plaintiffs in the case—who argued that the Biden administration unconstitutionally colluded with social media companies to undermine conservative views—had no grounds to sue.
An Oct. 9 post on X claims that “the US supreme court Just allowed President Biden to Force Elon Musk’s Twitter/X to Remove misinformation on platform before the Election.” Former president Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris are set to face off in the highly anticipated presidential election on Nov. 5.
However, the legal challenge regarding how much influence the White House has over social media content was dismissed earlier this year, per NBC News. The Biden administration was therefore not given permission to demand that certain posts be removed from X.
In 2022, as reported by Fox News, then Missouri attorney general Eric Schmitt accused the federal government of overreach regarding COVID-19 content. He was joined by his counterpart in Louisiana when he filed a lawsuit alleging that the Biden administration unconstitutionally pressured social media companies to remove controversial content about the pandemic.
SCOTUS picked up the case to determine whether laws in Texas and Florida were constitutional. These bills are related to social media censorship and have been blocked pending review from lower courts, CBS News reported in July. This order came months after the nation’s highest court agreed to hear the case regarding the Texas and Florida laws back in September 2023, per NBC News. (RELATED: FACT CHECK: Did Bide Refuse To Deploy The 82nd Airborne Division In Response To Hurricane Helene?)
The Republican-backed bills are seeking to prohibit social media platforms from deleting controversial content in discrimination against conservative users. Two months before being taken up by SCOTUS, the case received support from a district judge in Louisiana, who issued an injunction that restricted the Biden administration from having extensive contact with social media companies.
