Alito's dissent in RFK Jr case was 'vindicated' by Biden's Meta 'censorship' revelations.

The decision by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to remove third-party fact-checkers and relax content restrictions on the platform was celebrated by some conservative activists as a victory for Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, who had dissented from the majority in a content regulation case in late 2023, which included a post by former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

The Supreme Court declined to hear a case concerning whether Meta, the parent company of Facebook, exceeded its authority when it temporarily removed a 30-minute video posted by Kennedy, which contained vaccine misinformation and other false claims about COVID-19. Alito, the sole dissenter, disagreed with the majority's decision.

In a scathing dissent, Alito, a George W. Bush appointee, criticized the removal of the video and accused the platform of censoring political speech in an effort to combat misinformation. This action, he argued, could be seen as the platform acting on behalf of the U.S. government and causing "irreparable" harm.

If government officials hinder a candidate for high office from communicating with voters, our democratic government is weakened, and this is particularly dangerous when the officials involved are accountable to a rival candidate, as Alito stated in his dissent.

Alito stated that he would permit intervention to protect the First Amendment rights of the respondents and to reach the core of their claims.

"Alito wrote that because Mr. Kennedy's arguments on the merits are similar to respondents', intervention would not significantly impact petitioners' burden regarding that issue. However, denying intervention may prevent Mr. Kennedy from vindicating his rights until spring 2024, potentially as late as June of that year. By then, several months of the presidential campaign will have passed."

Earlier this month, Zuckerberg announced that Meta would be lifting its content restrictions on Facebook and Instagram, which were implemented following the 2016 elections. In a video posted on social media, he admitted that they had gone too far and allowed for too much political bias from outside fact-checkers.

In the announcement, Zuckerberg stated that there are now too many mistakes and too much censorship.

"We are returning to our core values of prioritizing speech and reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies, and restoring free expression on our platforms."

Elon Musk, the co-director of the planned Department of Government Efficiency, said that Meta will replace its current system with a "Community Notes"-style program, similar to the approach taken by social media platform X.

The Supreme Court's decision not to take up the case was praised by Mollie Hemingway, the editor-in-chief of The Federalist, who noted on X that the decision from Zuckerberg "vindicated" Alito's dissent. "It's kind of crazy how Zuck was like 'what they did had to be illegal' but the majority on Court was like 'I mean, who can know?'" Hemingway said.