Whether state officials violated the First Amendment by directing social media companies to remove political speech deemed false or misleading

QUESTIONS PRESENTED In 2018, California created the Office of Election Cybersecurity. State law empowers the Office “[t]o monitor and counteract false or misleading information regarding the electoral process that is published online,” and to “assess” and “mitigate” it alongside other California officials. Cal. Elec. Code §10.5. The Office makes no secret about the fact that it directs social media companies to remove online speech, including California-based Twitter. Exercising that power, the Office told Twitter that Petitioner’s tweet—political speech—was misinformation. And for the first time, Twitter punished him. Within months, he was suspended altogether. The courts below rejected Petitioner’s First Amendment claims against state officials. They concluded that the First Amendment did not preclude the State from singling out Petitioner’s Twitter account for censorship. Nor could it, according to the Ninth Circuit, because that would thwart the State’s right to engage in its own government speech. The questions presented are: 1. Whether the complaint plausibly alleged that state officials acted under color of state law in violation of the First Amendment when a state agency, which exists to police online speech, singled out Petitioner’s disfavored political speech for Twitter to punish and Twitter complied. 2. Whether the government speech doctrine empowers state officials to tell Twitter to remove political speech that the State deems false or misleading.