Global Courant
A U.S. district court judge temporarily bars White House officials from talking to tech companies about social media censorship, arguing that such actions were likely violations of the First Amendment in the past.
Tuesday’s order by Louisiana Judge Terry A. Doughty was in response to recent lawsuits from the Louisiana and Missouri attorneys general. The lawsuits allege that the White House forced or “significantly encouraged” technology companies to suppress free speech during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Doughty has banned several federal officials and agencies — including some members of Biden’s cabinet and White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre — from contacting social media companies in attempts to suppress speech.
Google, Meta and Twitter were all named in the lawsuits.
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President Biden in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on Friday, June 30, 2023. (Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
The court order, which was obtained by Fox News, states that the administration’s actions are “likely to violate the freedom of speech clause” and that the court is “unconvinced by the defendants’ arguments,” which White said. House hits hard.
“During the COVID-19 pandemic, a period perhaps best characterized by widespread doubt and uncertainty, the United States government appears to have assumed a role akin to that of an Orwellian ‘Ministry of Truth’ wrote Doughty.
“If prosecutors’ allegations are true, this case is likely the most massive attack on free speech in United States history,” the order added. “In their efforts to suppress alleged disinformation, the federal government, and in particular the defendants named here, allegedly blatantly ignored the First Amendment’s right to free speech.”
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The White House in Washington, DC (Yasin Ozturk/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
The injunction also claims that “the censorship alleged in this case was directed almost exclusively at conservative expression”, but that the issues the case raises “are beyond party lines”.
“Discrimination based on viewpoints is a particularly egregious form of discrimination based on content,” Doughty argued. “Government should refrain from regulating speech when the specific motivational ideology or perspective of the speaker is the rationale for the restriction.”
The cases could mean that interactions between tech companies and government officials could be significantly restricted in the future. Exceptions may include threats to national security or criminal affairs on social media.
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President Biden speaks about infrastructure investments in Los Angeles, October 13, 2022. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Fox News Digital has reached out to the White House, Google, Meta and Twitter for statements, but has not heard back. The Justice Department declined to comment.
