Washington — A federal appeals court temporarily halted a lower court order that restricted communication between top Biden administration officials and social media companies regarding content posted on their platforms.
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted the Justice Department’s request to put the July 4 preliminary injunction from U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty on hold while legal proceedings continue. The court also agreed to expedite the administration’s appeal.
The temporary administrative stay will remain in place “until further orders of the court,” according to the brief order.
The Justice Department sought relief from the 5th Circuit after asking Judge Doughy to halt his own order while pursuing an appeal. However, Doughty, who was appointed by former President Donald Trump, refused to do so and rejected the government’s claim that his injunction was too broad.
In a 13-page ruling, Doughty wrote, “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.”
The judge reaffirmed his belief that Missouri and Louisiana, who sued the government over federal officials’ communications with social media companies during the COVID-19 pandemic and 2020 election cycle, are likely to succeed in their case. He stated that these states “are likely to prove that all of the enjoined defendants coerced, significantly encouraged, and/or jointly participated [with] social-media companies to suppress social-media posts by American citizens that expressed opinions that were anti-COVID-19 vaccines, anti-COVID-19 lockdowns, posts that delegitimized or questioned the results of the 2020 election, and other content not subject to any exception to the First Amendment. These items are protected free speech and were seemingly censored because of the viewpoints they expressed.”
The July 4 injunction prohibits top 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 Karine Jean-Pierre, from communicating with 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 their platforms.
The injunction has some exceptions, such as allowing the Biden administration to inform social media companies about posts involving criminal activity, threats to national security and public safety, and illegal efforts to suppress voting or foreign attempts to influence elections.
The Justice Department argued that the injunction was too broad and unclear regarding permissible conduct and the covered individuals. They stated that it “may be read to prevent the Government from engaging in a vast range of lawful and responsible conduct — including speaking on matters of public concern and working with social media companies on initiatives to prevent grave harm to the American people and our democratic processes.”
The lawsuit, filed by the attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana, along with several individuals, accuses senior government officials of colluding with social media companies to suppress viewpoints and content on social media platforms, thereby violating the First Amendment. The suit specifically mentions the censorship of a New York Post story about the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop, posts about the origins and mitigation measures of COVID-19, and speech regarding the integrity of the 2020 presidential election.
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