Washington Post:

Weeks after the Supreme Court rejected a conservative-led push to block contacts between the U.S. government and social media companies, a new report from the Justice Department’s inspector general found that intelligence agencies’ communications with the companies have sometimes been undisciplined.

The 53-page report, published Tuesday by Justice Department Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz, affirmed that U.S. law enforcement agencies need to communicate with tech firms about foreign influence operations, such as Russia’s campaign to interfere in the 2016 presidential election. But it warned that officials need to be more systematic and careful about the nature of those communications to ensure they don’t cross the line into government censorship.

The current and former officials include Seth Bluestein, Kathy Boockvar, Edgardo Cortes, Lisa Deeley, Mark Earley, Neal Kelley, Trey Grayson, and DeForest B. Soaries, and are represented by the Brennan Center. 

The brief is here, and a summary of the argument is below. 

. . . Social media platforms rely on communicating with election officials to supply accurate information for the platforms’ voluntary public education efforts, to correct false and misleading content, and to identify threatening content that violates the platforms’ moderation policies. The integrity of American elections depends on those open lines of communication to ensure that platforms provide accurate information to the voting public.

The First Amendment permits private social media companies to decide what content to host on their platforms. In making those decisions, platforms are free to consult with government officials and, if they choose, to take those officials’ suggestions. Such communications by government officials—even emphatic ones—are an exercise of the government’s prerogative to voice its own views and are consistent with the First Amendment as long as the ultimate decision regarding content rests with the platforms themselves. The Fifth Circuit’s expansive state action test incorrectly classifies benign, non-coercive governmental communication as “entanglement” that renders platforms’ content moderation decisions to be attributable to the government itself. This Court should preserve its robust state action requirement and clarify that government officials responsible for protecting the integrity of American elections remain free to communicate with social media platforms, both regarding the platforms’ efforts to curate content and apply their content moderation policies, and to advocate for the government’s view on responsible moderation policies and practices.