U.S. judge blocks Biden officials from contacts with social media companies

A federal judge on Tuesday blocked key Biden administration agencies and officials from meeting and communicating with social media companies about “protected speech,” in an extraordinary injunction in an ongoing case that could have profound effects on the First Amendment.

The injunction came in response to a lawsuit brought by Republican attorneys general in Louisiana and Missouri, who allege that government officials went too far in their efforts to encourage social media companies to address posts that they worried could contribute to vaccine hesitancy during the pandemic or upend elections. The Trump-appointed judge’s move could upend years of efforts to enhance coordination between the government and social media companies.

The injunction was a victory for the state attorneys general, who have accused the Biden administration of enabling a “sprawling federal ‘Censorship Enterprise’” to encourage tech giants to remove politically unfavorable viewpoints and speakers, and for conservatives who’ve accused the government of suppressing their speech. In their filings, the attorneys general alleged the actions amount to “the most egregious violations of the First Amendment in the history of the United States of America.”

GOP: Biden violated First Amendment by pressing Big Tech on covid misinformation

The judge, Terry A. Doughty, has yet to make a final ruling in the case, but in the injunction, he wrote that the Republican attorneys general “have produced evidence of a massive effort by Defendants, from the White House to federal agencies, to suppress speech based on its content.”

The ruling could have critical implications for tech companies, which regularly communicate with government officials, especially during elections and emergencies, such as the coronavirus pandemic.

In his order, the judge made some exceptions for communications between the government officials and the companies, including to warn them of national security threats, criminal activity or voter suppression.

The Biden White House and Google, which is among the companies named in the suit, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Facebook parent company Meta declined to comment, and Twitter replied with an automated message containing a poop emoji.

Read who the judge said can’t contact the social media companies

The judge’s order puts limits on a number of executive agencies with a wide range of responsibilities across the federal government, including the Department of Justice, State Department, Department of Health and Human Services and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It also names more than a dozen individual officials, including Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Jen Easterly, who leads the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

The lawsuit marks a critical inflection point in a years-long, partisan battle over speech on social media. For years, Republicans have argued that social media companies’ policies to address disinformation related to elections and public health have resulted in the unfair censorship of their political views. Meanwhile, Democrats have argued that the companies have not gone far enough in policing their services to ensure they do not undermine democratic institutions.

The lawsuit brought by the Louisiana and Missouri attorneys general, is at the forefront of a broader GOP effort to allege that the Biden White House is putting “unconstitutional” pressure on the tech companies to eliminate disfavored views online. Such accusations have been fanned in multiple lawsuits, as well as in congressional hearings and probes in the Republican-led House of Representatives.

Read the judge’s full opinion granting the preliminary injunction

But the Louisiana-Missouri lawsuit marks a new twist in Republicans’ years-long complaints that tech companies are silencing their views. Instead of targeting the tech companies, which say they have a First Amendment right to decide what appears on their sites, the lawsuit targeted the federal government’s role in that process in the most successful legal effort to date to counter tech company moderation efforts.

The Biden administration has disputed the Republicans’ claims. Justice Department lawyers argued during a May hearing that the Republicans’ accusations claims were laced with “hyperbole,” according to a court transcript. They also warned that an injunction could undermine national security efforts, since the Republicans’ lawsuit critiques multiple programs that were established to respond to evidence that Russian actors exploited American social networks to sow disinformation in the fallout of the 2016 election.

The Republicans’ case hinges on tens of thousands of communications, including emails and messages, between Biden administration officials and social media companies, largely occurring between 2020 and 2021. The state attorneys general have argued that starting in 2017 – four years before Biden was president – officials within the government began laying the groundwork for a “systemic and systematic campaign” to control speech on social media.

These efforts accelerated in 2020, while Trump was still president, amid the response to the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic and efforts to secure the 2020 election, the attorneys general argued in court. They said those endeavors took a “quantum leap” forward once Biden became president, as the White House both publicly and privately pressured major tech companies to remove posts that could contribute to vaccine hesitancy, while at the same time threatening to regulate the social media companies.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

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