Religious Liberties Nonprofit Urges SCOTUS to Grant Cert to Twitter Petitioners

The Foundation for Moral Law, a religious liberties nonprofit, thinks that the federal government’s handling of COVID-19 information “has led to unprecedented infringements on our fundamental freedoms,” said its U.S. Supreme Court amicus brief Monday (docket 23-1062) in Changizi v. Department of Health and Human Services.

The brief supports the cert petition of three former Twitter users seeking review of the 6th U.S. Circuit Appeals Court’s judgment affirming that they lacked Article III standing to bring First Amendment social media censorship claims against the government (see 2403270011). Twitter terminated or suspended the accounts of petitioners Mark Changizi, Michael Senger and Daniel Kotzin for publishing COVID-19 tweets deemed to have run counter to HHS’ pandemic public information policy.

The petitioners allege the same First Amendment government censorship claims as the five individual plaintiffs in Murthy v. Missouri (docket 23-411) who seek to uphold the social media injunction against the government. The foundation believes that the people of the U.S. “must be free to criticize the government’s handling” of COVID-19, said its brief. “The original meaning of the Constitution and its First Amendment affirms these truths,” it said.

From the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the federal government has “actively sought to limit the spread of speech” it deems misinformation, said the brief. The petitioners plead facts that showed government officials made statements “that specifically threatened social media companies with adverse consequences unless such misinformation was controlled,” it said. Under the First Amendment's “original meaning,” HHS has “abridged” the petitioners’ rights to free speech, and their claims “should be allowed to proceed to discovery,” it said.

The government’s actions are “unconstitutional prior restraints” under the original intent of the free speech clause, said the brief. As alleged by the petitioners, the government “had the direct aim of restraining what they deemed misinformation regarding government actions” in response to COVID-19, it said.

Government actions that threaten to punish publishers for certain speech “have the clear object and effect of restraining speech critical of the government,” said the brief. SCOTUS should grant the petitioners cert, it said. Doing so will address the important question of whether the petitioners have Article III standing “to pursue a First Amendment claim for relief on the basis of allegations that federal officials induced a social media platform to censor them because of their criticisms against the government,” it said.