NYU Law Forum-Social Media, Government Jawboning, and the First Amendment at the Supreme Court

Wednesday, March 6, 2024
Recent issues of major public concern (the COVID pandemic; threats to the secure administration of federal elections) have engendered a wave of mis- and disinformation, often spread virally through social media platforms. This has highlighted a vital but unsettled question in US law: When can the government act to persuade social media companies to alter their content moderation policies and/or take down certain speech, and when do those efforts cross into violations of the First Amendment? The debate over this practice, often called government “jawboning,” will come to a head in Murthy v. Missouri, set to be argued before the Supreme Court on March 18.
Murthy poses a number of questions that defy easy answer, driving at the heart of how we wish to construct and regulate what some consider to be the modern public square. At this Forum, experts with experience in government lawyering, private platforms, and free speech advocacy examined major issues raised by the case and what’s at stake.
This Forum was co-hosted by the Reiss Center on Law and Security and Just Security.
Panelists
Jameel Jaffer, Executive Director, Knight First Amendment Institute, Columbia University; Executive Editor, Just Security
Kathryn Ruemmler, Chief Legal Officer and General Counsel, Goldman Sachs; former White House Counsel to President Barack Obama
Colin Stretch, Chief Legal Officer and Corporate Secretary, Etsy; former General Counsel, Facebook (now Meta)
Moderator
Ryan Goodman, Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz Professor of Law and Faculty Co-Director, Reiss Center on Law and Security, NYU School of Law; Founding Co-Editor-in-Chief, Just Security