Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/23-411_3dq3.pdf
Page Number: 30

Cite as:  603 U. S. ____ (2024) 

25 

Opinion of the Court 

In these circumstances, Hines cannot rely on “the predict-
able  effect of  Government  action  on  the  decisions  of  third 
parties”;  rather,  she  can  only  “speculat[e]  about  the  deci-
sions of third parties.”  Department of Commerce, 588 U. S., 
at 768.  It is “no more than conjecture” to assume that Hines
will be subject to White House-induced content moderation. 
Los Angeles v. Lyons, 461 U. S. 95, 108 (1983).  Hines (along
with the other plaintiffs) has therefore failed to establish a 
likelihood of future injury traceable to the White House or 
the Surgeon General’s Office.  Likewise, the risk of future 
harm traceable to the CDC is minimal.  The CDC stopped 
meeting with the platforms in March 2022.  Thereafter, the 
platforms sporadically asked the CDC to verify or debunk 
several claims about vaccines.  But the agency has not re-
ceived any such message since the summer of 2022.10 

The plaintiffs’ counterarguments do not persuade.  First, 
they argue that they suffer “continuing, present adverse ef-
fects”  from  their  past  restrictions,  as  they  must  now  self-
censor on social media.  O’Shea, 414 U. S., at 496.  But the 
plaintiffs “cannot manufacture standing merely by inflict-
ing harm on themselves based on their fears of hypothetical
future harm that is not certainly impending.”  Clapper, 568 
U. S., at 416.  And as we explained, the plaintiffs have not 
shown that they are likely to face a risk of future censorship
traceable to the defendants.  Indeed, even before the defend-
ants entered the scene, the plaintiffs “had a similar incen-
tive to engage in” self-censorship, given the platforms’ inde-
pendent content moderation.  Id., at 417.  So it is “difficult 
—————— 

10 The dissent claims that the future injury prong is satisfied because 
Facebook  continued  to  censor  Hines  at  the  time  of  her  complaint  and 
thereafter.  Post, at 17.  But the dissent gives short shrift to the key point:
By  the  time  Hines  filed  suit  in  August  2022,  the  White  House  was  no
longer  engaged  in  any  sort  of  “pressure  campaign”  toward  Facebook. 
(Note that the dissent, in its 10-page recounting of the record, devotes 
only one paragraph to the events of 2022.  Post, at 14.)  Thus, when Hines 
sued, it was unlikely that Facebook’s actions were fairly traceable to the 
White House at the time—or would be going forward.