Murthy v. Missouri, 603 U.S. 43

Background:

Major social-media platforms (Facebook/Meta, Twitter/X, YouTube) long maintained content-moderation policies that removed, demoted, or labeled posts they deemed false or misleading, including during the COVID‑19 pandemic and the 2020 election cycle.
Federal actors (White House digital‑strategy staff, Surgeon General, CDC, FBI, CISA) repeatedly communicated with platforms in 2020–2022 about COVID‑19 and election misinformation, sometimes publicly urging stronger action and at times suggesting potential regulatory or legal consequences.
Plaintiffs: two States (Missouri and Louisiana) and five individual users (three physicians, a website owner, and an activist) sued dozens of Executive Branch officials and agencies, alleging the Government coerced or significantly encouraged private platforms to censor protected speech in violation of the First Amendment.
District Court entered a broad preliminary injunction enjoining many federal actors from inducing platforms to suppress protected speech; the Fifth Circuit affirmed in part (finding standing and state‑action via coercion/encouragement) and narrowed some defendants.
Supreme Court reversed for lack of Article III jurisdiction: no plaintiff proved a concrete, imminent, traceable, and redressable future injury from the Government defendants sufficient to obtain the requested forward‑looking injunction.

Issues:

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Standing based on "direct censorship" (forward‑looking injunction)	Past platform restrictions plus government pressure make further governmental‑induced moderation likely; injunction against officials will prevent future censorship	Plaintiffs lack a substantial, imminent risk traceable to named officials; platforms often acted independently and before government contacts	No standing: plaintiffs failed to show a substantial risk that a platform will censor them in the near future at the behest of any named government defendant
Traceability of past moderation to specific government actors	Government communications helped produce platform policy changes that caused plaintiffs' past restrictions	Platforms had independent incentives and often changed policies before or without government input; record lacks specific causation showing particular defendant → particular platform → particular plaintiff	Insufficient causal links for most plaintiffs; only Hines showed tenuous links but not enough to establish likely future traceable harm
Redressability and self‑censorship (would injunction remedy harms?)	Injunction stopping government pressure will reduce platform censorship and relieve self‑censorship	Even if initial policies were influenced, platforms are not parties and may continue enforcing policies independent of government; injunctive relief against officials unlikely to change platforms' conduct	No redressability: courts cannot reliably prevent the platforms' independent enforcement by enjoining government officials, given lack of ongoing pressure evidence
"Right to listen" / third‑party standing	Individuals and States have an interest in receiving others' speech and can sue to protect that interest	Theory is overbroad; must show concrete, particularized harm tied to specific speakers; States cannot sue as parens patriae against the Federal Government for citizens' speech restrictions	Rejected: plaintiffs lacked a sufficiently concrete, particularized injury to assert a generalized right to listen; States cannot bring parens patriae claims against federal government here

Key Cases Cited

Raines v. Byrd, 521 U.S. 811 (1997) (Article III case‑or‑controversy requirement and standing basics)
Clapper v. Amnesty Int'l USA, 568 U.S. 398 (2013) (future‑injury standing requires substantial risk, not speculative chains)
Simon v. Eastern Ky. Welfare Rights Org., 426 U.S. 26 (1976) (courts cannot redress injury resulting from independent action of third parties)
O'Shea v. Littleton, 414 U.S. 488 (1974) (for injunctive relief plaintiffs must face a real and immediate threat of repeated injury)
TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez, 594 U.S. 413 (2021) (standing is not dispensed in gross; plaintiffs must show standing for each claim and defendant)
Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555 (1992) (elements of injury‑in‑fact, traceability, redressability and evidentiary burdens at different stages)
Department of Commerce v. New York, 588 U.S. 752 (2019) (third‑party reactions can be ‘‘predictable’’ and support traceability when supported by evidence)
Bantam Books, Inc. v. Sullivan, 372 U.S. 58 (1963) (government may not coerce or intimidate intermediaries into suppressing speech)
National Rifle Assn. v. Vullo, 602 U.S. 175 (2024) (government cannot indirectly accomplish what it cannot do directly; coercion test factors)
Massachusetts v. EPA, 549 U.S. 497 (2007) (redressability can be satisfied even when relief will only partially or indirectly mitigate asserted injury)