Judge Hits Biden Administration With Injunction Against “Orwellian” Censorship

In a major move that could potentially reshape the relationship between the government and social media companies, a federal judge has issued a preliminary injunction barring key agencies and officials of the Biden administration from communicating with tech companies on matters related to suppressing protected speech. On Tuesday, Independence Day, District Judge Terry A. Doughty issued the injunction as a response to a lawsuit initiated by Republican attorneys general from Louisiana and Missouri. The Sixth Circuit granted the injunction that blocks multiple federal agencies and top Biden admin officials from “urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing” social media companies to remove, delete, or suppress “content containing protected free speech posted on social media-platforms.” The injunction also blocks these officials from: Flagging this content on social media platforms Urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing social media companies to change their content moderation guidelines Working with the Virality Project (a coalition of research entities that push for censorship), the Election Integrity Partnership (the Virality Project’s previous name), the Stanford Internet Observatory (a center that says it studies the “abuse” of the internet, receives government funding, and has been implicated in censorship pressure on social media platforms), or any similar groups for the purpose of urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing social media companies to censor content containing protected free speech The lawsuit alleged that government officials overstepped boundaries by urging social media platforms to tackle posts that might incite vaccine hesitancy during the COVID-19 pandemic or influence elections. The preliminary injunction could have far-reaching consequences…Judge Hits Biden Administration With Injunction Against “Orwellian” Censorship