Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/23-411_3dq3.pdf
Page Number: 32

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

27 

Opinion of the Court 

responsible for many of the challenged communications in 
this case.  Enjoining the Government defendants, therefore,
is unlikely to affect the platforms’ content-moderation deci-
sions.11 

C 
We  conclude  briefly  with  the  plaintiffs’  “right  to  listen”
theory.  The individual plaintiffs claim an interest in read-
ing and engaging with the content of other speakers on so-
cial  media.   The  First  Amendment,  they  argue,  protects
that interest.  Thus, the plaintiffs assert injuries based on 
the  restrictions  that  countless  other  social-media  users 
have experienced.

This  theory  is  startlingly  broad,  as  it  would  grant  all
social-media users the right to sue over someone else’s cen-
sorship—at least so long as they claim an interest in that
person’s  speech.  This  Court  has  “never  accepted  such  a 
boundless theory of standing.”  Already, LLC v. Nike, Inc., 
568 U. S. 85, 99 (2013).  While we have recognized a “First 
Amendment  right  to  ‘receive  information  and  ideas,’ ”  we 

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11 As with traceability, the dissent is wrong to claim that we are apply-
ing a “new and elevated standard for redressability.”  Post, at 22.  Far 
from  holding  plaintiffs  to  a  “certainty”  standard,  ibid.,  we  simply  con-
clude that an injunction against the Government defendants is unlikely 
to stop the platforms from suppressing the plaintiffs’ speech.  And while 
traceability and redressability are “ ‘often “flip sides of the same coin,” ’ ” 
post, at 22 (quoting FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, 602 U. S. 
367, 380 (2024); emphasis added), that is not always the case.  Facebook 
might continue to remove Hines’ posts under a policy that it adopted at 
the White House’s behest (thus satisfying traceability).  But if the White 
House officials have already abandoned their pressure campaign, enjoin-
ing them is unlikely to prompt Facebook to stop enforcing the policy (thus 
failing redressability).  Finally, by invoking Massachusetts v. EPA, it is 
the dissent that applies a new and loosened standard for redressability. 
Post, at 22.  In that case, we explained that state plaintiffs are “entitled 
to special solicitude” when it comes to standing, and we conducted our 
analysis accordingly.  549 U. S. 497, 520 (2007).  That “special solicitude” 
does not apply to Jill Hines, an individual.