Washington – A federal judge on Monday dismissed A Ministry of Justice request to temporarily halt an order that bars top Biden administration officials and several agencies from contacting the social media companies, dismissing the government’s claims that the injunction was too broad and threatened to quash lawful conduct.
U.S. District Judge Terry Doty, who was appointed to federal court by former President Donald Trump, reiterated in A 13 page rule Denying the Justice Department’s request for a stay Missouri and Louisiana are likely to succeed based on the merits of their cases against the Biden administration.
“Although this initial order involves many agencies, it is not as extensive as it appears,” Doughty wrote. “It merely prohibits something that Defendants have no legal right to do — contacting social media companies with the intent to solicit, encourage, pressure, or in any way induce the removal, deletion, suppression, or diminution of content containing protected free speech posted on the communication platforms.” social.”
Missouri and Louisiana, he said, “are likely to prove that all defendants charged coerced, substantially encouraged, and/or jointly participated in [with] Social media companies are suppressing social media posts by US citizens that express opinions about COVID-19 vaccines and anti-COVID-19 lockdowns, posts that delegitimize or question the results of the 2020 election, and other content that is not subject to any exception from First Amendment. This material is free speech protected, and appears to have been censored because of the views they expressed.”
After Doty’s refusal, the Justice Department asked the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit to stay the pending trial court order pending appeal and requested relief by July 24.
“The District Court has issued a universal injunction in sweeping, readable language to ban (among other things) virtually any government communication directed to social media platforms regarding content moderation,” the DOJ attorneys wrote. “The Court’s belief that the injunction only prohibits unconstitutional conduct, while protecting the legal privileges of government, is based on a fundamentally flawed conception of the First Amendment, and the Court’s efforts to condition the injunction through a series of cuts did not address the injunction’s breadth or its ambiguity.”
Dotty issued July 4 order Limiting communications between the Biden administration and social media companies, including Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, as part of a lawsuit filed in 2022 by the attorneys general of Louisiana and Missouri.
The states, which were joined by several individuals, alleged that senior government officials colluded with the companies to suppress views and content on social media platforms, in violation of the First Amendment.
The preliminary injunction bars a number of senior Biden administration officials — including Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy and White House Press Secretary Karen Jean-Pierre — from engaging in a range of communications with social media companies.
Administration officials, as well as many federal agencies, are temporarily prohibited from working with companies in ways intended to “incite, encourage, pressure, or incite in any way to remove, delete, suppress, or reduce content that contains content protected by free speech.”
But the order includes several cuts and allows the administration to report posts to social media companies that involve criminal activity, threats to national security and public safety, illegal efforts to suppress voting, or foreign attempts to influence elections.
The Biden administration is appealing Doty’s ruling, but has asked him to delay the decision while the proceedings continue. Justice Department lawyers have argued that the order is too broad and unclear as to who it covers and what behavior it allows. They also warned that last week’s order would “discourage a wide range of legitimate government behaviour”.
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