Judge: Biden Administration cannot coerce social media platforms to censor content
MGN
WASHINGTON, D.C. (WDEF) — In a court document, a federal judge approved an injunction, stopping the Biden Administration from communicating with social media companies to censor their content.
A preliminary injunction is a court order that goes into effect prior to or during a trial.
The court order is in response to a lawsuit filed against the Biden Administration and various other officials. The case is State of Missouri, Et Al. v. Joseph R. Biden, Jr. Et Al.
Missouri and Louisiana Attorneys General filed the lawsuit on May 5, 2022.
The lawsuit claims the defendants (government officials) coerced social media companies into censoring dissenting views on certain subject matter.
Those topics include COVID-19 vaccines, masking and lockdowns, the lab leak theory, the validity of the 2020 election, President Biden’s policies, the Hunter Biden laptop information, and other government policies. The document argues that the U.S. government assisted in having conservative viewpoints censored on all these topics.
The judge ordered that this administration cannot talk to social media companies for “the purpose of urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner the removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech.”
Defendants of this case include some notable officials such as:
- Joe Biden,
- Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre,
- National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases,
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC),
- Department of Homeland Security,
- Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency,
- United States Census Bureau,
- U.S. Department of Commerce,
- U.S. Department of Justice,
- Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI),
- U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA),
- U.S. Department of State,
- U.S. Treasury,
- U.S. Election Assistance Commission.
There are many other defendants as well, which can be found in the injunction.
In addition, it states much of the content that Facebook and Twitter suppressed did not violate company policies.
One example it specifically names in which this happened was the suppression of “content that originated from the Children’s Health Defense, a nonprofit activist group headed by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.” Though he was not running for political office at the time, Kennedy is now running as a democratic candidate for president.
The document also explains this case is still in an early stage.
