Adam Liptak

A majority of the Supreme Court seemed wary on March 18 of a bid by two Republican-led states to limit the Biden Administration’s interactions with social media companies, with several justices questioning the states’ legal theories and factual assertions. Most of the justices appeared convinced that government officials should be able to try to persuade private companies, whether news organizations or tech platforms, not to publish information so long as the requests are not backed by coercive threats.

The Supreme Court allowed Biden administration officials to continue to contact social media platforms to combat what the officials say is misinformation, pausing a sweeping ruling from a federal appeals court that had severely limited such interactions. The justices also agreed to hear the administration’s appeal in the case, setting the stage for a major test of the role of the First Amendment in the internet era — one that will require the court to consider when government efforts to limit the spread of misinformation amount to censorship of constitutionally protected speech.

The Supreme Court handed twin victories to technology platforms on May 18 by declining in two cases to hold them liable for content posted by their users. In a case involving Google, the court for now rejected efforts to limit the sweep of the law that frees the platforms from liability for user content, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.

The Supreme Court heard arguments over whether internet platforms may be sued for aiding and abetting international terrorism by failing to remove videos supporting the Islamic State.

In a case with the potential to alter the very structure of the internet, the Supreme Court did not appear ready to limit a law that protects social media platforms from lawsuits over their users’ posts.

When Simon & Schuster canceled its plans this week to publish Senator Josh Hawley’s book, he called the action “a direct assault on the First Amendment.” And when Twitter permanently banned President Trump’s account, his family and his supporters said similar things. “We are living Orwell’s 1984,” Donald Trump Jr.

In a lively and freewheeling argument on Wednesday, the Supreme Court considered whether it should place limits on class-action settlements in which the plaintiffs’ lawyers receive millions and their clients get nothing. In the process, several justices mused about the nature of privacy in the digital age. The case arose from an $8.5 million settlement between Google and class-action lawyers who said the company had violated its users’ privacy rights. Under the settlement, the lawyers were paid more than $2 million, but members of the class received no money.

Conservative groups, borrowing and building on arguments developed by liberals, have used the First Amendment to justify unlimited campaign spending, discrimination against gay couples, and attacks on the regulation of tobacco, pharmaceuticals and guns. “The libertarian position has become dominant on the right on First Amendment issues,” said Ilya Shapiro, a lawyer with the Cato Institute. “It simply means that we should be skeptical of government attempts to regulate speech. That used to be an uncontroversial and nonideological point.

In a test of antitrust law, the Supreme Court ruled 5 to 4 that American Express could use contracts to stop merchants from steering consumers to other cards. The decision has implications not only for what one brief called “an astronomical number of retail transactions” but also for other kinds of markets, notably ones on the internet, in which services link consumers and businesses. Such “two-sided platforms,” the Court said, require special and seemingly more forgiving antitrust scrutiny.

Internet retailers can be required to collect sales taxes in states where they have no physical presence, the Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 decision. Brick-and-mortar businesses have long complained that they are disadvantaged by having to charge sales taxes while many of their online competitors do not. States have said that they are missing out on tens of billions of dollars in annual revenue under a 1992 Supreme Court ruling that helped spur the rise of internet shopping. On June 21, the court overruled that ruling, Quill Corporation v.