A U.S. judge on Tuesday issued an injunction blocking government agencies from communicating with social media platforms for the purpose of restricting user content and suppressing information.
Judge Terry Doughty of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana issued the preliminary injunction on the 4th of July in response to a lawsuit filed by the Louisiana and Missouri attorney generals (AG). The two attorney generals argued that federal agencies had overstepped their authority by directly impelling social media platforms to censor and suppress user content.
The attorney generals called the government’s backdoor deals with big tech to censor Americans’ speech, “the most blatant infringements of the First Amendment in U.S. history.”
“The evidence in our case is shocking and offensive,” Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry said in a press release. “With senior federal officials deciding that they could dictate what Americans can and cannot say on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other platforms about COVID-19, elections, criticism of the government, and more.”
In the past, many federal officials and social media heads have openly discussed the “collaboration” between the two entities to control the spread of “misinformation.”
“The level of collaboration between the private sector and government,
FBI Director Christopher Wray speaking at the World Economic Forum in 2023
especially the FBI, has I think, made significant strides.”
The Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), Centers for Disease Control (CDC), Health and Human Services (HHS), National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Department of State (State Department), as well as heads of agencies and department officials, were explicitly blocked from conspiring with social media platforms.
Under the injunction, the named government agencies and officials are no longer permitted to communicate in any manner with social media platforms for the purpose of “pressuring, or inducing in any manner the removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech.” Additionally, they are prohibited from encouraging companies “to change their guidelines for removing, deleting, suppressing, or reducing content containing protected free speech.”
Former DHS Official: Big Tech has ‘Got to Get Comfortable’ with Big Gov
A report from the Intercept earlier this year uncovered extensive collusion between the federal government and social media sites. Internal memos, emails, documents, employee leaks, and public documents “illustrate an expansive effort by the [DHS] to influence tech platforms,” according to the report.
“‘Platforms have got to get comfortable with gov’t. It’s really interesting how hesitant they remain,’ Microsoft executive Matt Masterson, a former DHS official, texted Jen Easterly, a DHS director, in February.”
“There is also a formalized process for government officials to directly flag content on Facebook or Instagram and request that it be throttled or suppressed through a special Facebook portal that requires a government or law enforcement email to use.”
Intercept
Elon Musk’s coordinated release of the Twitter Files after acquiring the tech platform unveiled more corruption. Under former leadership, Twitter employees, often at the behest of government officials, blacklisted prominent conservative voices — including Turning Point USA’s CEO Charlie Kirk, limited post visibility, prevented topics from trending, and even removed dissident accounts altogether.
Three of the largest social media platforms in the nation, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook synchronized the removal of elected officials, including former President Donald Trump.
Last year, Meta’s Facebook was alleged by whistleblowers to have spied on users’ “private” messages and reported the information gathered to the FBI. In 2021, TIME Magazine openly boasted about a “secret shadow campaign” that “successfully pressured social media companies to take a harder line against disinformation.”
A DHS “anti-terrorism” program was also recently exposed as a partisan plan to demonize conservative organizations, including Turning Point USA. Under the guise of fighting terrorism, the DHS awarded the University of Dayton “$352,109 to create the PREVENTS-OH program,” according to the Media Research Center’s report.
According to TPUSA, the PREVENTS-OH initiative “hosts seminars to advance the liberal operative agenda and to train audience members to participate in illicit actions meant to ‘destabilize’ political movements.” One of these seminars was attended and led in part by DHS agent Joseph Masztalics. Throughout this seminar, the audience was encouraged to “participate in de-platforming, the act of denying conservative organizations and individuals ‘any sort of public sphere access’ and ‘denying them the ability to speak.'”
Federal Government Files Emergency Stay Request to Pause Injunction Limiting Communication with Social Media Platforms
In response to Judge Doughty’s injunction, the U.S. government filed an emergency stay request in an attempt to block the injunction from going into effect. “In the emergency stay, the government contended that the injunction was vague and that the attorney generals could not show harm from the censorship,” The Politics Brief reported, adding that it is “an argument that Judge Terry Doughty had rejected multiple times in the past.”
The emergency stay request argues that limiting the federal government’s ability to moderate content could cause “grave harm,” and calls the judge’s order “ambiguous.”
Whether or not the emergency stay will be granted remains to be seen.
Researched and edited by Marisa Crate.
