The Supreme Court has turned down a petition from Children’s Health Defense (CHD), leaving unexamined the group’s challenge to what it describes as collusion between Meta and federal agencies aimed at suppressing constitutionally protected speech.

The case, which dates back to 2020, centered on CHD’s allegations that Facebook, under government influence, targeted and silenced its views on vaccines and COVID-19.

CHD filed its initial complaint against Meta in August 2020 and later amended it, arguing that government officials worked alongside the tech giant to stifle dissenting opinions that the public had every right to hear.

The removal of CHD’s Facebook and Instagram accounts in 2022 only fueled concerns about the growing threat of coordinated censorship in digital spaces.

Those accounts, once a major source of alternative information for millions, remain banned.

In a decision last year, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals sided with Meta, holding that the company’s actions reflected private policy choices rather than government compulsion.

CHD hoped the Supreme Court would take up the case and examine whether that distinction truly shields Big Tech from accountability when it suppresses speech at the behest of public officials. But the justices declined, offering no explanation, as is typical in most of the thousands of petitions they review annually.

The timing of the case added another layer of significance. Just one day after CHD petitioned the high court in January, Mark Zuckerberg revealed Meta was shutting down its controversial third-party “fact-checking” program. This system had served as the justification for censoring CHD and many others who questioned dominant narratives on sensitive topics.

Although no justice publicly dissented or issued a written opinion opposing the denial of the petition, that does not necessarily mean the decision was unanimous.

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