COMPARED WITH the searing controversies America’s Supreme Court has been weighing this year—from abortion to guns to presidential immunity—Murthy v Missouri may seem like small potatoes. But the 6-3 decision on June 26th deflecting a challenge to the Biden administration’s consultations with social-media companies was notable—not least for the cross-ideological composition of the majority.

The path to Murthy began in 2021 when officials in the Biden administration took to the bully pulpit to encourage the likes of Facebook, YouTube and the site then known as Twitter to suppress posts pushing misinformation on covid-19 and the 2020 (and 2022) elections. The surgeon-general, Vivek Murthy, urged the sites to “redesign recommendation algorithms to avoid amplifying misinformation” about the public-health emergency. The FBI and other federal agencies advised the firms on misleading content about the elections, including “pernicious foreign influence campaigns”. One senior White House official complained to Facebook that the platform had not removed a particular post containing false claims about election fraud. “Last time we did this dance”, he said, “it ended in an insurrection.”