Statement from CEO Nina Jankowicz on Murthy v. Missouri Decision
Washington, D.C. — Today, the Supreme Court dismissed the claims attempting to stifle the fight against disinformation in Murthy v. Missouri for lack of standing. In response, American Sunlight Project Executive Director Nina Jankowicz—one of the original named defendants in the case—issued the following statement:
“The Supreme Court has now acknowledged that the allegations of censorship against researchers and the government were without merit. The Justices rightly recognized that this case was baseless and that lower court rulings were based on misrepresentations of fact, with statements attributed to researchers taken out of context or wholly fabricated.
“In oral arguments before the Court, the state of Missouri could not trace a single piece of removed social media content to pressure from government officials. And today, the Majority’s ruling confirmed this, stating that the plaintiffs ‘fail[ed], by and large, to link their past social-media restrictions and the defendants’ communications with the platforms.’ On this, the Court was clear: Communication about online harms is not coercion.
“In other ways, this is a narrow ruling that leaves open many questions about the First Amendment and its implications for the relationships between government, researchers, and the social media industry.
“This is an opportunity for lawmakers to act: Congress should create a robust transparency regime for social media that informs the public on how the government communicates concerns to platforms while allowing researchers the access they need to conduct in-depth studies of the relationship between social media and social harm.
“There is also a role for civil society to play in helping shape congressional action to maximize impact and protect civil rights. Support for independent researchers and their access to crucial social media data is the best way to secure that knowledge for the public.
“Leaving the digital public square ungoverned only benefits those who would use disinformation to undermine US democracy. The American people deserve to know how social media affects their speech and their lives.”
