The Latest Breaking News from Murthy

Prof. Hamburger continues to conflate coercion and voluntary choice.

Round 3 in the debate between Hamburger and Somin over the First Amendment and Murthy

Episode 497 of the Cyberlaw Podcast

Philip Hamburger: Prof. Somin is mistaken about Murthy v. Missouri

On Monday, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in Murthy v. Missouri. Justices Kavanaugh and Kagan--who both worked in the White House--stated that it was fairly common for government officials to "berate" the press. Justice Kavanaugh observed that "experienced government press people throughout the federal government . . .. regularly…

State officials “jawboned” financial firms into cutting ties with the gun-rights group.

Part of the Murthy v. Missouri challengers' claim is that the First Amendment bans the government from even "substantially encouraging" private entities to block user speech. And as I noted in the post below, I appreciate the difficulties with this claim (though I also appreciate its appeal). Here, though, I…

The government can't block viewpoints it condemns from its own property that has been opened to publicspeech. Should there be limits on government systematically and substantially encouraging private entities to block the same viewpoints from their property—which may be much more important to public debate than the government property where…

The government is entitled to try to persuade social media to take down posts, but not to coerce them to do so.

Plaintiffs in Murthy v Missouri argue White House requests to take down coronavirus misinformation violate first amendment

The newspaper portrays the constitutional challenge to the government's social media meddling as a conspiracy by Donald Trump's supporters.