Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/23-411_3dq3.pdf
Page Number: 10.0

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

5 

Opinion of the Court 

trends  and  flagging  example  posts.  The  platforms  often
asked the agency for fact checks on specific claims. 

FBI and CISA.  These agencies communicated with the
platforms  about  election-related  misinformation.    They
hosted  meetings  with  several  platforms  in  advance  of  the 
2020 Presidential election and the 2022 midterms.  The FBI 
alerted the platforms to posts containing false information 
about voting, as well as pernicious foreign influence cam-
paigns that might spread on their sites.  Shortly before the
2020 election, the FBI warned the platforms about the po-
tential for a Russian hack-and-leak operation.  Some com-
panies  then  updated  their  moderation  policies  to  prohibit 
users  from  posting  hacked  materials.  Until  mid-2022, 
CISA,  through  its  “switchboarding”  operations,  forwarded 
third-party  reports  of  election-related  misinformation  to
the platforms.  These communications typically stated that
the agency “w[ould] not take any action, favorable or unfa-
vorable, toward social media companies based on decisions
about how or whether to use this information.”  72 Record 
23,223. 

B 
Respondents  are  two  States  and  five  individual  social-
media  users.  They  were  the  plaintiffs  below,  and  for  the 
sake of narrative clarity, we will refer to them as “plaintiffs”
in this opinion.  (Likewise, we will refer to the Government 
individuals and agencies as “defendants” rather than peti-
tioners.)  The  individual  plaintiffs—three  doctors,  the
owner of a news website, and a healthcare activist—allege 
that various platforms removed or demoted their COVID–
19 or election-related content between 2020 and 2023.  The 
States,  Missouri  and  Louisiana,  claim  that  the  platforms 
have suppressed the speech of state entities and officials, as 
well as their citizens’ speech.

Though  the  platforms  restricted  the  plaintiffs’  content,
the  plaintiffs  maintain  that  the  Federal  Government  was