*

White House welcomes ruling, written by Justice Barrett

*

The challengers lacked legal standing to sue, court says

(Adds details on 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, paragraphs

20-21)

By Andrew Chung

WASHINGTON, June 26 (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court

declined on Wednesday to impose limits on the way President Joe

Biden's administration may communicate with social media

platforms, rejecting a challenge made on free speech grounds to

how officials encouraged the removal of posts deemed

misinformation, including about elections and COVID.

The justices, in a 6-3 ruling, overturned a lower court's

2023 decision that various federal officials likely violated the

U.S. Constitution's First Amendment, which protects against

governmental abridgment of free speech, in a case brought by the

states of Missouri and Louisiana as well as five individuals.

The New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had

issued an injunction constraining such contacts by the

administration. But conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who

authored the Supreme Court's ruling, wrote that the two

Republican-led states and the other plaintiffs lacked the

required legal standing to sue the administration in federal

court.

The plaintiffs in 2022 sued officials and agencies across

the federal government, including in the White House, FBI,

surgeon general's office, Centers for Disease Control and

Prevention and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security

Agency.

Barret wrote that the plaintiffs could not show a "concrete

link" between the conduct by the officials and any harm that the

plaintiffs suffered. They "emphasize that hearing unfettered

speech on social media is critical to their work," Barrett

wrote. "But they do not point to any specific instance of

content moderation that caused them identifiable harm."

Conservative Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Neil

Gorsuch dissented from the decision.

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre welcomed the

ruling, saying it helps Biden's administration "continue our

important work with technology companies to protect the safety

and security of the American people, after years of extreme and

unfounded Republican attacks on public officials who engaged in

critical work to keep Americans safe."

The plaintiffs had argued that the administration violated

the rights of social media users whose posts were removed by

platforms including Facebook, YouTube, and

Twitter, now called X.

The legal issue was whether the administration crossed the

line from mere communication and persuasion to strong arming or

coercing platforms - sometimes called "jawboning" - to

unlawfully censor disfavored speech, as lower courts found.

Biden's administration argued that officials sought to

mitigate the hazards of online misinformation, including false

information about vaccines during the pandemic that they said

was causing preventable deaths, by alerting social media

companies to content that violated their own policies.

"This administration engages with social media and other

technology companies on critical topics, including terrorism

threats, foreign malign influence campaigns, online harassment

of women and children, and mental health of children and

adolescents," Jean-Pierre added.

Many researchers, as well as liberals and Democrats, have

warned of the dangers of social media platforms amplifying

misinformation and disinformation about public health, vaccines

and election fraud.

Echoing concerns raised by Republicans and various voices on

the right, the plaintiffs argued that platforms, with their

content-moderation practices, suppressed conservative-leaning

speech. That was, the plaintiffs said, government coercion - a

form of state action barred by the First Amendment.

'A FREE PASS'

Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill criticized the

ruling, saying, "A majority of the Supreme Court gives a free

pass to the federal government to threaten tech platforms into

censorship and suppression of speech that is indisputably

protected by the First Amendment."

In a dissent, Alito wrote that the court's majority "permits

the successful campaign of coercion in this case to stand as an

attractive model for future officials who want to control what

the people say, hear and think."

Barrett faulted the evidence provided by the plaintiffs and

said lower courts had "glossed over complexities." Barrett found

that Louisiana-based U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty, who

issued a preliminary injunction in July 2023, made factual

findings that "unfortunately appear to be clearly erroneous."

Doughty had concluded that the plaintiffs were likely to

succeed on their claim that the government helped suppress

"disfavored conservative speech" on mask-wearing, lockdowns and

vaccines intended as public health measures during the pandemic,

or that questioned the validity of the 2020 election in which

Biden, a Democrat, defeated Donald Trump, a Republican.

The 5th Circuit subsequently narrowed that order, although

the Supreme Court in October had put on hold the injunction.

Wednesday's ruling represented another rejection by the

Supreme Court of a decision by the 5th Circuit, whose

far-reaching decisions are under increased scrutiny by the

justices.

The Supreme Court has reversed or thrown out six of the

eight 5th Circuit decisions that the justices have addressed so

far. For instance, the justices on June 13 reversed a 5th

Circuit decision restricting access to the abortion pill, also

on legal standing grounds.