The White House, health officials and the FBI may have violated the First Amendment rights of people posting about COVID-19 and elections on social media by pressuring technology companies to suppress or remove the posts, a federal appeals court ruled late Friday.
The decision from the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals partly upheld an order from a Louisiana federal judge that blocked many federal agencies from having contact with companies like Facebook, YouTube and X, formerly Twitter, about content moderation.
But the 75-page opinion from three-judge panel also significantly narrowed the scope of the order that was a major victory for conservatives.
The Biden administration has 10 days to seek a Supreme Court review of the ruling.
The White House and the Justice Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The states of Louisiana and Missouri filed the lawsuit along with a conservative website owner and four people who opposed the administration’s COVID-19 policy.
The lawsuit accused administration officials of coercing platforms into taking down controversial content including election fraud, the FBI’s handling of Hunter Biden’s laptop and the COVID pandemic.
The 5th Circuit panel found that the White House coerced the platforms through “intimidating messages and threats of adverse consequences” and commandeered the decision-making processes of social media companies, particularly in handling pandemic-related and 2020 election posts.
“It is true that the officials have an interest in engaging with social media companies, including on issues such as misinformation and election interference. But the government is not permitted to advance these interests to the extent that it engages in viewpoint suppression,” the judges wrote.
The appeals court pared down U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty’s July 4 ruling, saying it was “overbroad.” Doughty said the lawsuit may involve “the most massive attack against free speech in United States’ history.”
It also removed also some agencies from the order: the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency and the State Department. Many of those government officials, the judges ruled, were “permissibly exercising government speech.”
In a post on X, Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry called Friday’s ruling a major win against censorship and Biden.
Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey posted on X: “The Fifth Circuit has upheld the district court’s order in our free speech case, Missouri v. Biden, enjoining the White House, Surgeon General, CDC, & FBI from violating the First Amendment rights of millions of Americans.”
Administration officials have said they tried to reduce COVID deaths by clamping down on harmful misinformation and that they routinely alert social media companies about illegal activity such as human trafficking or terrorism.
“This administration has promoted responsible actions to protect public health, safety, and security when confronted by challenges like a deadly pandemic and foreign attacks on our elections,” a White House official said in July. “Our consistent view remains that social media platforms have a critical responsibility to take account of the effects their platforms are having on the American people, but make independent choices about the information they present.”
