Columbus, OH – After a win in Missouri v. Biden, The Buckeye Institute filed an amicus brief in O’Handley v. Weber—a free speech case out of California—calling on the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case and stop the state of California from “jawboning” social media companies to censor viewpoints the government does not agree with. 

“Nearly 900 years ago, King Henry II jawboning—‘will no one deliver me this turbulent priest?’—lead to the murder of Henry’s advisor turned critic Thomas Beckett,” said Jay R. Carson, senior litigator at The Buckeye Institute. “While the government’s lament, ‘Will no one rid us of these turbulent Tweets?’ is unlikely to lead to murder, the danger of ‘jawboning’ social media companies violates the First Amendment and degrades free speech and expression as a value worth protecting.”

As it did in its amicus brief in Missouri v. Biden, The Buckeye Institute argues that “jawboning” blurs the line between permissible government speech and impermissible censorship schemes and raises significant concerns about the expansion of the government speech doctrine. 

In Missouri v. Biden—a New Civil Liberties Alliance case—the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana ruled that the Biden administration must cease contacting certain social media companies to influence online postings. The court explained that the “Plaintiffs have presented substantial evidence in support of their claims that they were the victims of a far-reaching and widespread censorship campaign” and that they are “likely to succeed on the merits of their First Amendment free speech claim” against the federal government.

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UPDATE: On July 2, 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court denied cert.