A federal appeals panel said this week that the Biden administration likely violated the first amendment in its work to prevent the spread of misinformation on social media.
However, the panel allowed a district court order to be put on pause for 10 days so the case can be appealed to the Supreme Court.
“The district court’s judgment is AFFIRMED with respect to the White House, the Surgeon General, the CDC, and the FBI, and REVERSED as to all other officials,” said the panel. According to CNN, all three of the judges – Edith Clement, Jennifer Walker Elrod and Don Willett – were appointed by Republicans presidents.
U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty, who handed down the initial decision, is an appointee of former President Donald Trump. Based on his popularity with the GOP at the polls, Trump is expected to run against President Joe Biden a second time next year after losing to him in the 2020 presidential election.
Per the document filed Friday in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, “a group of social-media users and two states allege that numerous federal officials coerced social-media platforms into censoring certain social media content, in violation of the First Amendment,” and the judges said they “agree, but only as to some of those officials.”
It said that federal officials have been concerned about the spread of “misinformation” on social media since the transition from the Trump to Biden administrations.
“A group of federal officials has been in regular contact with nearly every major American social-media company about the spread of ‘misinformation’ on their platforms. In their concern, those officials – hailing from the White House, the CDC, the FBI, and a few other agencies – urged the platforms to remove disfavored content and accounts from their sites,” the panel said.
Plaintiffs claimed that posts related to “the COVID-19 lab-leak theory, pandemic lockdowns, vaccine side effects, election fraud, and the Hunter Biden laptop story,” were removed and that the efforts continue today. Though the panel agreed with the plaintiffs that some government officials “likely coerced” social media companies to remove posts, they did narrow the district court’s order.
Previously, the Biden administration argued in the lawsuit brought by Republican attorneys general claiming that communication with social media companies must remain open so that the federal government can help protect the public, said CNN.