A left-wing researcher who chaired a since-dissolved Department of Homeland Security “misinformation” panel accused of facilitating censorship directly advised social media companies on content moderation policies, she testified to Congress behind closed doors.

A majority of the Supreme Court seemed wary on Monday of a bid by two Republican-led states to limit the Biden administration’s interactions with social media companies, with several justices questioning the states’ legal theories and factual assertions.

Most of the justices appeared convinced that government officials should be able to try to persuade private companies, whether news organizations or tech platforms, not to publish information so long as the requests are not backed by coercive threats.

The Supreme Court weighed a historic First Amendment dispute on Monday between Republican-led states and the Biden administration over how far the federal government can go to combat social media posts on subjects including COVID-19 information, election security, or possible threats.

U.S. Supreme Court justices on Monday appeared skeptical of a challenge on free speech grounds to how President Joe Biden's administration encouraged social media platforms to remove posts that federal officials deemed misinformation, including about elections and COVID-19.

The justices heard oral arguments in the administration's appeal of a lower court's preliminary injunction constraining how White House and certain other federal officials communicate with social media platforms.

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The Supreme Court appeared skeptical of arguments Monday by the states of Florida and Texas that they are justified in regulating social media content moderation in a landmark case with major implications for speech on the internet.

The court heard oral arguments for two major speech-related cases on Monday: NetChoice v. Moody and NetChoice v. Paxton. The technology industry group NetChoice sued the states of Texas and Florida over laws imposed by Republicans meant to hold social media platforms accountable for banning users based on viewpoint.

The board, which is run independently of Meta and funded through a grant by the company, described the policy as “incoherent, lacking in persuasive justification and inappropriately focused on how content has been created, rather than on which specific harms it aims to prevent.”

The recommendation came as part of the board’s review of Meta’s decision to leave up a manipulated video of President Biden on Facebook that was edited to make it appear as though he was inappropriately touching his granddaughter.

A video on Facebook manipulated to suggest that President Joe Biden behaves inappropriately toward women can remain on the platform, but only because of a problematic loophole in Meta’s “incoherent” policies, the company’s Oversight Board said Monday.

The loophole threatens elections worldwide and should be closed as soon as possible, the quasi-judicial board added.

Meta was told to label any media that featured edits of politicians generated by artificial intelligence.

The Oversight Board, an organization created by Meta to oversee what content the company removes from Facebook and Instagram, ruled on Monday that Meta had to leave AI-generated media designed to deceive the public on its platforms but that it had to label them as such.

Taylor Swift continued to be the most talked about woman on the Internet on Sunday, when the Kansas City Chiefs were declared Super Bowl bound.

Despite Travis Kelce and Swift being at the forefront of trends, X still had her name blocked from the search function on its platform.

The decision to keep Taylor's name unsearchable on X began earlier in the week after it was discovered that sexually explicit AI-generated images were circulating on the social media network. 

The social media platform X has blocked users from searching for Taylor Swift after fake sexually explicit images of the pop singer proliferated on social media this week, an executive said on Sunday.

Searches for Swift's name on Sunday afternoon on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter yielded the error message, "Something went wrong. Try reloading."

"This is a temporary action and done with an abundance of caution as we prioritize safety on this issue," Joe Benarroch, head of business operations at X, said in a statement.