| Friend,
Amid a busy Supreme Court calendar with many high-profile rulings, Free Press Action is closely monitoring five with direct impacts on our work: Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo; Relentless, Inc. v. Department of Commerce; Murthy v. Missouri; NetChoice, LLC v. Paxton and Moody v. NetChoice, LLC. These cases deserve your attention.
Loper Bright and Relentless both stem from disputes between commercial fishers and the National Marine Fisheries Service — but these cases strike at the heart of Chevron, a 1984 ruling stating that courts should defer to federal agencies’ reasonable interpretations of statutory authority. Agencies are staffed with subject-matter experts that other branches of government do not have.
And that’s why all of us at Free Press Action are so worried about this pair of cases: Beyond jeopardizing the policymaking powers of agencies including the FCC, any weakening of Chevron could have a direct impact on ongoing Title II/Net Neutrality court battles that we’re participating in to defend an open internet.
Free Press Action is hosting a virtual briefing on Thurs., June 27, at 3:30 p.m. ET to break down these cases and the efforts from conservative and extremist forces to limit what the government can do to stand up against corporate interests.
Will you join us? RSVP and get all of the details now. In Murthy v. Missouri, the Court heard arguments about the Biden administration’s efforts to call on social-media platforms to remove posts that lied about the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2020 election. Free Press Action believes government agencies and officials should be able to provide factual information to social media platforms — especially involving issues of public health, election integrity and incitement to violence — in support of companies’ ongoing content moderation efforts.
NetChoice, LLC v. Paxton and Moody v. NetChoice, LLC concern Florida and Texas laws that forbid social-media platforms from deleting or even deemphasizing posts that violate content-moderation rules. Free Press Action believes that social-media platforms should strengthen and enforce their content-moderation policies — but we do not believe the government has the right to dictate how this is accomplished. There is too great a risk of partisan officials hiding behind the mantle of “free speech” to promote hateful and deceitful content that aligns with their agendas.
Preserving free expression online is vital to preserving a functioning democracy and is a core principle of our newly released media and technology policy platform.1
Join us this week — on Thurs., June 27, at 3:30 p.m. ET — to learn how these Supreme Court cases could reshape the relationship between government officials and social-media platforms … for better or for worse.
Will we see you there? Please RSVP to let us know you’re coming. Hope to connect with you then,
Yanni and the rest of us at Free Press Action
freepress.net
1. “Free Press Action Releases 2024 Media and Technology Policy Platform,” Free Press Action, June 18, 2024  |
