[ May 7, 2024 ]
What a wonderful Independence day gift. The Judge said the US government appears to have acted like ‘an Orwellian ‘Ministry of Truth.’
A U.S. District Court judge is temporarily preventing White House officials from meeting with tech companies about social media censorship, arguing that such actions in the past were likely First Amendment violations.
The Tuesday injunction by Louisiana Judge Terry A. Doughty was in response to recent lawsuits from Louisiana and Missouri attorneys general. The suits allege that the White House coerced or “significantly encourage[d]” tech companies to suppress free speech during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Story continues below advertisementDoughty is barring several federal officials and agencies – including some of Biden’s Cabinet members and White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre – from contacting social media companies in efforts to suppress speech.
Google, Meta and Twitter were all named in the lawsuits. (source)
U.S. District Judge Terry A. Doughty has blocked various federal government entities and figures from pressuring social media companies to censor “protected free speech” on their platforms.
Plaintiffs have alleged that the government wielded its authority to trample First Amendment free speech rights.
Breaking: Judge Delivers Major Blow to Biden Admin in Social Media Censorship Case
By Tom Ozimek, The Epcoh Times, July 4, 2023Updated: July 4, 2023:
A federal judge has made a historic ruling by partially granting an injunction that blocks various Biden administration officials and government agencies like the Justice Department and the FBI from working with big tech firms to censor posts on social media.
The injunction came in response to a censorship-by-proxy lawsuit brought by attorneys general in Louisiana and Missouri, who have accused Biden administration officials and various government agencies of pressuring social media companies to suspend accounts or take down posts.
The judge, Terry A. Doughty, wrote in the July 4 judgment (pdf) that various government agencies, including the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency (CISA), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the U.S. Department of State, the Department of Justice (DOJ), and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are prohibited from taking a range of actions with regards to social media companies.
Specifically, the agencies and their staff members are prohibited from meeting or contacting by phone, email, 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,” per the injunction.
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 removing or otherwise suppressing their reach.
Encouraging or otherwise egging on social media companies to change their guidelines for the removal, suppression, or reduction of content that contains protected free speech by the government is also not allowed.
The judge, a Trump appointee, wrote in the ruling 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 wrote in an accompanying memorandum that the plaintiffs are “likely to succeed on the merits in establishing that the Government has 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,” Doughty wrote.
While the judge’s ruling is not final, the preliminary injunction is a win for the Republican attorneys general who have accused the Biden administration of pressuring big tech companies to engage in censorship-by-proxy scheme.
‘We’re Not Done Yet’
Following the injunction, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey hailed the decision in a series of posts on social media.
“The Court has granted our motion to BLOCK top officials in the federal government from violating the First Amendment rights of millions of Americans. What a way to celebrate Independence Day,” Bailey said in a statement on Twitter.
“The preliminary injunction prohibits nearly all of the federal government, including DHS, DOJ, and HHS, from coercing and colluding with social media companies to censor free speech,” Bailey added.
However, the judge made some exceptions in his order, 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 as well as communicating with companies about suppressing posts that are not protected free speech.
The injunction pertains to various named agencies as well as their agents, officers, employees, and contractors.
The Epoch Times has contacted the White House and various agencies named in the injunction with a request for comment.
“We’re not done yet,” Bailey wrote in a post. “We’re just getting started.”
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21 Comments
10 months ago
All these court “victories” are on cases that should never have been necessary in the first place. Freedom of speech is one of the so-called “clearly established” rights, and the government knew what it was doing was illegal. The New York Post and others that were censored by Facebook and Twitter at the behest of the FBI and other federal agencies, would have had a good lawsuit against the feds and Facebook and Twitter for aiding and abetting the feds. Too bad that the statute of limitations is over. I had my popcorn ready.
10 months ago
Reply to
Jason
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Last edited 10 months ago by Reaver Rogue
10 months ago
Reply to
Jason
We may still run into some who don’t care because they reason Big Tech is private. And that people are free to go to other social media platforms.
But of course, this isn’t just about social media censorship, it’s about freezing your bank accounts and assests too if you have the wrong political opinions. that is one of their ultimate goals.
10 months ago
It does not matter how the courts rule. The progressive, commie, demoncraps, and their handlers will not heed what the courts say and do as they please.
10 months ago
You can be sure the stalinist statist juggernaut with jughead joe fumbling along will continue to oppose free speech, oppose freedom at every turn and act dictatorially at every opportunity it has. The same is true in almost every western nation with the current potpourri of pathetic political leftist hacks like Justie Castro up here in Canuckistan. The slop shop of leftist loons that seek to eliminate freedom and justice are identified by the pungent stench of hypocrisy that emanates from their pitiful carcasses.
10 months ago
I had reason to call a Medicare office yesterday and the first thing on the answering machine was encouragement to get a Covid 19 booster. The same message consistently appears at my health care facility. Why is Medicare still ADVERTISING these shots? Why are health care institutions still doing so?
10 months ago
Is anybody going to prison if they violate free speech after this court order? We still need people thrown in prison to send a message to theses democrat thugs.
10 months ago
I never thought I would see SCOTUS and other judges finally take a turn for the better. Maybe the country has some hope!
10 months ago
big brother has a face … a scary one .. a Deleware swagger .. it is he – Joey Bygones .. it old, but scarey …
10 months ago
Keep it rolling – we have a LONG WAY TO GO –
10 months ago
Not good enough. These lousy MF’ers trampled all over my rights and made me sit in the corner. I DEMAND REPARATIONS.
10 months ago
If you think for one microsecond the democrats are honoring that ruling you have your head up your democrat.
10 months ago
Reply to
Samuel The Lamanite
It’s good that SCOUS has spoken plainly concerning those secret works of darkness
10 months ago
It’s very good that the United States had reached the 247 years anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
By contrast ,it’s terrible that the US has a criminal fraud, Joe Biden, masquerading as America’s President.
10 months ago
Joe Biden is, in essence , very anti- American. Therefore, with this 247th anniversary of the official signing of the declaration of Independence on July 4th. 1776. It’s therefore very good to remember the wisdom of the former United States President, Theodore Roosevelt , who in a speech, rightly, declared “There can be no fifty- fifty Americanism in this country . There is room here for only one hundred percent Americanism, only for those are Americans and nothing else.
10 months ago
It’s about time!
10 months ago
It’s about tim !!
10 months ago
Because of their conspiracy Trump lost the election. If nobody goes to jail nothing will change.
9 months ago
Just today 7/8 /23, I remembered that yesterday was that 18 anniversary of those murderous jihad train bombings in that London train station that killed 52 people and injured many more on July 7 ,2005.
So put on a tee- shirt that had the words Printed on It “Islam is a religion of pieces “ I then when to the public library in my hometown waring that shirt , then sat down to keyboard on the computer.
Then to of the librarians, together approached me and told me that my shirt in “inappropriate” that then they told men change or cover my shirt or leave the library.
In response to their demand, I informed my shirt in only a mirror reflection of that deadly Islamic jihadist train bombing which occur on 7/7/05.
The libertarians refused to listen to reason and the logic of that truth and repeated their demand. It’s amazingly terrible how much influence the politically ideology has infected American society , especially when come to “Muslim sensitivities” about revealing an ugly reflection about the reality of their religion.
This shows that “freedom of speech” is diminishing in America.
