Northwestern experts on SCOTUS decision in the Murthy v. Missouri case

EVANSTON, Ill. --- In a 6-3 ruling, the Supreme Court rejected an effort to restrict White House officials from pressuring social media companies to remove posts that were deemed problematic or misinformed by the U.S. government. The Court ruled on a technicality that the challengers, Republican attorney generals in Louisiana and Missouri and social media users, did not have legal standing to bring the case forward.

The plaintiffs alleged the Biden administration violated the First Amendment in communications with social media companies during the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2020 presidential election when the administration pressured them to remove posts that were spreading misinformation.

The following professors are available to media:

Paul Gowder is a professor of law and associate dean of research and intellectual life at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law. His research focuses on the rule of law, democratic theory, social and racial equality, institutional and organizational governance, law and technology, and classical Athenian law and political thought.

William Brady is an assistant professor of management and organizations at Northwestern Kellogg School of Management. His research examines the dynamics of emotion at the social network level and their consequences for group behavior. His recent work studies how human psychology and AI-mediated social contexts interact to shape our emotions and intergroup attitudes.

Erik C. Nisbet is the Owen L. Coon Endowed Professor of Policy Analysis & Communication and director of the Center for Communication & Public Policy in the School of Communication at Northwestern University. An expert on misinformation, his research lies at the intersection of media, public opinion and public policy in the areas of science.

Quote from Professor Nisbet:

“The Supreme Court did not decide this case based on its merits but dismissed it on a technicality. This means whether the Biden White House acted improperly in communicating with social media platforms to remove content they found harmful or dangerous remains an open question.

“The case more generally highlights the need for regulatory guidelines for social media platforms, and requiring greater transparency from them, to address potentially harmful, dangerous and problematic content. Social media platforms have demonstrated time and time again that they are unable to moderate themselves and are incapable and/or unwilling to do so.

“Without such guidelines, regardless of whether the federal government has good intentions to attempt to mitigate harmful online content, we cannot ensure that such attempts do not unnecessarily suppress free speech and become politicized by either Democrat or Republican administrations.

“In many ways, the European Union is way ahead of the United States in dealing with this problem through their legal and regulatory initiatives such as the Digital Services Act that provides regulatory procedures while protecting free speech and combating dis/misinformation.  We should consider the same in the U.S.”

To set up an interview with any of the professors, contact Shanice Harris at shanice.harris@northwestern.edu.