(NewsNation) — The U.S. Supreme Court is set to take up whether misinformation related to COVID-19 is protected free speech, and if so, whether the Biden administration violated Americans’ First Amendment rights.
During the pandemic, Biden officials urged platforms to scrub unverified content and amplify correct information related to the virus.
Those platforms included Facebook, YouTube and X — formerly called Twitter. Many of the posts expressed opinions that federal officials said constituted misinformation about the pandemic.
The Supreme Court is set to hear arguments in March for a case that could set a precedent for online discourse in the future.
X (Twitter at the time) announced in 2022 that it would no longer enforce its policy against COVID-19 misinformation, a move that raised concerns among public health experts and social media researchers that the change could have serious consequences if it discouraged vaccination and other efforts to combat the virus.
Under the policy enacted in January 2020, Twitter prohibited false claims about COVID-19 that the platform determined could lead to real-world harm. More than 11,000 accounts were suspended for violating the rules, and nearly 100,000 pieces of content were removed from the platform, according to the company.
U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy in 2021 called for a national effort to fight misinformation about COVID-19 and vaccines, urging tech companies, health care workers, journalists and everyday Americans to do more to address an “urgent threat” to public health.
In a 22-page advisory, his first as President Joe Biden’s surgeon general, Murthy wrote that bogus claims have led people to reject vaccines and public health advice on masks and social distancing, undermining efforts to end the coronavirus pandemic and putting lives at risk.
Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.