A U.S. District Court judge is temporarily barring White House officials from meeting with tech companies about social media censorship, arguing that those actions in the past were likely violations of the First Amendment.
Tuesday’s order by Louisiana Judge Terry A. Doughty was in response to recent lawsuits by the Louisiana and Missouri attorneys general. The lawsuits allege that the White House coerced or “significantly encouraged.”[d]”tech companies to suppress free speech during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Doughty is barring 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 to try to suppress the speech.
Google, Meta and Twitter were 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 order, which was obtained by Fox News, states that the government’s actions “likely violate the Free Speech Clause” and that the court is “not persuaded by the defendants’ arguments,” dealing a major blow to the White House .
“During the COVID-19 pandemic, a period perhaps best characterized by widespread doubt and uncertainty, the U.S. government appears to have assumed a role similar to an Orwellian ‘Ministry of Truth,'” Doughty wrote.
“If the allegations made by the plaintiffs are true, the present case involves arguably the most massive attack on free speech in the history of the United States,” the demand adds. “In their attempts to suppress the alleged misinformation, the federal government, and in particular the defendants cited herein, are alleged to have blatantly disregarded the First Amendment right to free speech.”
The warrant also states that “the censorship alleged in this case was directed almost exclusively at conservative speech,” but that the issues raised by the case go “across party lines.”
“Viewpoint discrimination is a particularly egregious form of content discrimination,” Doughty argued. “Government must refrain from regulating speech when the specific motivating ideology or perspective of the speaker is the justification for the restriction.”
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The White House in Washington, DC (Yasin Ozturk/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
The cases could mean that interactions between tech companies and government officials may be significantly limited in the future. Exceptions may include threats to national security or criminal matters on social media.
The court order received favorable responses from the attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana on Tuesday.
“Happy Birthday America. You get your first amendment back!!!” Missouri AG Andrew Bailey wrote in a tweet
“Today’s landmark ruling is a big step in the continued fight to bar our government from unconstitutional censorship,” Louisiana AG Jeff Landry said in a statement. “We look forward to continuing to litigate the case and will vigorously defend the injunction on appeal.”
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President Biden speaks about infrastructure investments in Los Angeles on Oct. 13, 2022. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Fox News Digital reached out to the White House, Google, Meta and Twitter for statements, but has not heard back. The Justice Department declined to comment.
