Biden Admin Appeals Injunction Preventing It From Coordinating With Social Media To Suppress Speech

The Biden administration appealed a preliminary injunction Wednesday issued to prevent federal officials from communicating with social media platforms to censor content containing protected speech.

Western District of Louisiana Judge Terry A. Doughty issued the injunction Tuesday after finding plaintiffs in the free speech lawsuit Missouri v. Biden, Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry and Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, had produced “evidence of a massive effort by Defendants, from the White House to federal agencies, to suppress speech based on its content.” The Biden administration appealed the injunction to the Fifth Circuit on Wednesday.

The injunction prevented federal officials, including those in the Department of Health and Human Services and the FBI, from communicating with social media platforms for “the purpose of urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner the removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech.”

“Although this case is still relatively young, and at this stage the Court is only examining it in terms of Plaintiffs’ likelihood of success on the merits, the evidence produced thus far depicts an almost dystopian scenario,” Doughty wrote. “During the COVID-19 pandemic, a period perhaps best characterized by widespread doubt and uncertainty, the United States Government seems to have assumed a role similar to an Orwellian ‘Ministry of Truth.’”

Landry and Bailey filed a motion for a preliminary injunction in March. The filing highlighted over 1,400 facts, obtained through documents the attorneys general gained access to from the lawsuit, that they argued shows officials engaged in censorship activities with social media platforms.