Conservative Groups Counter Biden Admin's Social Media Censorship in Court
U.S. District Court Judge Terry Doughty issued a preliminary injunction on July 4 preventing the federal government from suppressing free speech by coercing social media companies.
But the Department of Justice was able to get the injunction in Missouri v. Biden lifted on July 14, at least temporarily, by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals as the case makes its way through the legal system.
Doughty previously rejected the government’s request for a stay of the injunction, writing in a July 10 order, “Although this Preliminary Injunction involves numerous agencies, it is not as broad as it appears.”
“It only prohibits something the Defendants have no legal right to do — contacting social media companies for the purpose of urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner, the removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech posted on social-media platforms,” he added.
Multiple conservative groups — including Leadership Institute, Eagle Forum, Gun Owners of America and The Western Journal — have now filed an amicus brief at the 5th Circuit seeking to have the injunction against the federal government reimposed.
The brief argues that anti-conservative viewpoint suppression was a major issue during the 2020 election when the FBI worked closely with social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter to prevent reports on the Hunter Biden “laptop from hell” from circulating.
The Biden administration leaned heavily on these companies and others like Google (the owner of YouTube) to prevent the spread of “misinformation,” as defined by federal officials, about such issues as the efficacy of COVID vaccines and mask mandates, the COVID lab leak theory, and the integrity of the 2020 election.
Missouri v. Biden — brought by the states of Missouri and Louisiana and other plaintiffs — not only names President Joe Biden as a defendant but many officials in his administration, including former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Dr. Anthony Fauci and officials from the FBI, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Department of Homeland Security.
In his July 4 ruling, Doughty held that the plaintiffs “are likely to succeed on the merits [of] their claim that the United States Government, through the White House and numerous federal agencies, pressured and encouraged social-media companies to suppress free speech,” and therefore a preliminary injunction was appropriate.
The judge noted the many forms that government pressure took, including regular meetings with social media executives, flagged posts, requests for certain types of posts to be removed, and directives requiring reports of the posts that had been taken down.
“This seemingly unrelenting pressure by Defendants had the intended result of suppressing millions of protected free speech postings by American citizens,” Doughty wrote. “Faced with unrelenting pressure from the most powerful office in the world, the social-media companies apparently complied.”
The judge further noted, “What is really telling is that virtually all of the free speech suppressed was ‘conservative’ free speech.”
Doughty explained, “The principal function of free speech under the United States’ system of government is to invite dispute; it may indeed best serve its high purpose when it induces a condition of unrest, creates dissatisfaction with conditions as they are, or even stirs people to anger.”
In a legal brief to the 5th Circuit arguing against Doughty’s injunction, the DOJ wrote, “Presidents and other officials have long exercised the power of persuasion to advance their vision of the public good.”
Communicating the government’s wishes to social media companies to suppress certain speech was merely an extension of that type of advocacy, the department argued.
Further, “One of the central prerogatives of the President and Executive Branch officials is to speak to members of the American public — including American companies — about how they can help mitigate threats to the Nation,” the DOJ said.
However, the conservative groups observed in their amicus brief, “The government appears to have forgotten what [James] Madison explained so clearly, that: ‘the censorial power is in the people over the government, and not in the government over the people.'”
In other words, the government should not be in the business of censoring people either directly or indirectly by placing a heavy hand on social media companies.
The conservative groups concluded, “The administrative stay should be lifted, and the district court’s injunction should be put back into effect. The practice of censorship by the national government must be brought to an end, before it destroys the very foundations of our constitutional republic.”
Liberal organizations the Brennan Center for Justice, Common Cause and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law filed an amicus brief arguing against the injunction being reimposed.
Those groups argued that Doughty’s injunction is “overbroad” and does not provide enough guidance regarding what communication by the government is prohibited.
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