According to a U.S. district judge, the Biden Administration may be in big trouble for coordinating with social media companies to violate free speech rights during the pandemic.
“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,” Fox News reports.
“Doughty 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,” the report continues.
Google, Meta, and Twitter were all named in the lawsuits.
“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,’” Judge Doughty wrote.
“If the allegations made by Plaintiffs are true, the present case arguably involves the most massive attack against free speech in United States’ history,” the injunction adds. “In their attempts to suppress alleged disinformation, the Federal Government, and particularly the Defendants named here, are alleged to have blatantly ignored the First Amendment’s right to free speech.”
“Viewpoint discrimination is an especially egregious form of content discrimination,” Doughty argued. “The government must abstain from regulating speech when the specific motivating ideology or the perspective of the speaker is the rationale for the restriction.”
“Happy birthday America. You get your First Amendment back!!!” Missouri AG Andrew Bailey wrote in a tweet.
Happy birthday America. You get your First Amendment back!!!🇺🇸
— Attorney General Andrew Bailey (@AGAndrewBailey) July 4, 2023
“Today’s historic ruling is a big step in the continued fight to prohibit our government from unconstitutional censorship,” Louisiana AG Jeff Landry said in a statement. “We look forward to continuing to litigate the case and will vigorously defend the injunction on appeal.”
