The Biden administration has filed an appeal asking the courts to overturn a historic ruling that blocks government agencies from contacting or working with big tech companies to censor posts on social media.
The Biden administration was widely expected to appeal the ruling, and The Epoch Times has learned that DOJ officials anticipate a quick decision by the appeals court to block the various prohibitions that the plaintiffs had hailed as a win for free speech.
The plaintiffs, Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry and Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, have both pledged to fight the appeal.
Mr. Landry said in a statement that he expected the appeal and vowed to “aggressively defend [the ruling],” noting that he thinks the case will eventually be heard before the U.S. Supreme Court.
‘Shocking, Appalling, and Concerning’
Mr. Doughty, a Trump appointee, wrote in the July 5 decision that the Republican attorneys general who sued the Biden administration “have produced evidence of a massive effort by Defendants, from the White House to federal agencies, to suppress speech based on its content.”The judge said the agencies named in the lawsuit, along with their staff members, are prohibited from meeting or contacting by phone, email, or text message or “engaging in any communication of any kind with social-media companies urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner for removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech.”
The agencies are also barred from flagging content on posts on social media platforms and forwarding them to the companies with requests for action, such as removal or other suppression of reach.
The government is also forbidden from encouraging social media companies to change their guidelines for the removal, suppression, or reduction of content that contains protected speech.
While the judge’s ruling isn’t final, the preliminary injunction was seen as a win by the Republican attorneys general, who have accused the Biden administration of pressuring big tech companies to engage in a censorship-by-proxy scheme.
“This could be arguably one of the most important First Amendment cases in modern history,” Mr. Landry told The Epoch Times’ “American Thought Leaders” in an interview following the ruling.
“If you look at the opinion that the judge lays out, he takes from our argument that this is basically one of the most massive undertakings of the federal government to limit American speech in the history of our country. The things that we uncovered in this case should be both shocking, appalling, and concerning for all Americans.
“I think that this injunction today certainly begins curtailing government action and telling social media companies what they can and cannot allow on their platforms.”
‘All Were Suppressed’
Mr. Landry gave examples of censorship-by-proxy at the hands of the Biden administration, including email chains between high-ranking White House officials and social media platforms targeting specific individuals, such as presidential hopeful Robert Kennedy Jr. and media personality Tucker Carlson, “directly targeting them and asking those social media platforms to take their content down.”“There are a number of things that as we uncovered information in the discovery process of this case, that was shocking to us, all of that was presented to this judge,” Mr. Landry said. “And that’s what I think was compelling him to eventually do what he did today, which is to order and give us the injunction.”
The judge wrote in an accompanying memorandum that the plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the merits of the case in their bid to prove that the Biden administration used its power to silence the opposition.
“Opposition to COVID-19 vaccines; opposition to COVID-19 masking and lockdowns; opposition to the lab-leak theory of COVID-19; opposition to the validity of the 2020 election; opposition to President Biden’s policies; statements that the Hunter Biden laptop story was true; and opposition to policies of the government officials in power. All were suppressed,” Mr. Doughty wrote in the memo.
The judge did make some exceptions in his order, however, allowing government officials to contact social media companies to alert them of criminal activity or threats to national security.
Also allowed are contacts notifying social media companies about posts intending to mislead voters about voting requirements or procedures and communicating with companies about suppressing posts that aren’t protected speech.
The prohibition to contact or otherwise work with social media companies on content containing protected speech applies to various named agencies and their agents, officers, employees, and contractors.
The DOJ told The Epoch Times in an emailed statement that it wouldn’t comment on pending litigation.
