Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/23-411_3dq3.pdf
Page Number: 31

26 

MURTHY v. MISSOURI 

Opinion of the Court 

to see how” the plaintiffs’ self-censorship “can be traced to”
the defendants.  Ibid. 

Second,  the  plaintiffs  and  the  dissent  suggest  that  the 
platforms  continue  to  suppress  their  speech  according  to 
policies  initially  adopted  under  Government  pressure. 
Post,  at  21.  That  may  be  true.    But  the  plaintiffs  have  a 
redressability problem.  “To determine whether an injury is
redressable,” we “consider the relationship between ‘the ju-
dicial relief requested’ and the ‘injury’ suffered.”  California 
v.  Texas,  593  U. S.  659,  671  (2021).    The  plaintiffs  assert
several  injuries—their  past  social-media  restrictions,  cur-
rent self-censorship, and likely social-media restrictions in
the future.  The requested judicial relief, meanwhile, is an
injunction stopping certain Government agencies and em-
ployees from coercing or encouraging the platforms to sup-
press speech.  A court could prevent these Government de-
fendants from interfering with the platforms’ independent
application of their policies.  But without evidence of con-
tinued  pressure  from  the  defendants,  it  appears  that  the
platforms  remain  free  to  enforce,  or  not  to  enforce,  those 
policies—even  those  tainted  by  initial  governmental  coer-
cion.  The platforms are “not parties to the suit, and there
is no reason they should be obliged to honor an incidental
legal determination the suit produced.”  Lujan, 504 U. S., 
at  569  (plurality  opinion);  see  also  Haaland  v.  Brackeen, 
599 U. S. 255, 293–294 (2023). 

Indeed,  the  available  evidence  indicates  that  the  plat-
forms have enforced their policies against COVID–19 mis-
information  even  as  the  Federal  Government  has  wound 
down its own pandemic response measures.  For instance, 
Hines  reports  that  Facebook  imposed  several  restrictions 
on her vaccine-related posts in the spring of 2023.  Around 
the same time, in April 2023, President Biden signed a joint 
resolution that ended the national COVID–19 emergency.
See Pub. L. 118–3, 137 Stat. 6.  The next month, the White 
House disbanded its COVID–19 Response Team, which was