The Biden administration is not allowed to interact with social media companies about posts shared on their platforms for now, as it could jeopardize freedom of expression. With this sweeping injunction, a Louisiana federal judge intervened on Tuesday in the polarized socio-political debate about where combating online disinformation can turn into government censorship.
During the corona pandemic, the White House and other government officials directly contacted tech companies about the moderation of messages that went against official health guidelines on things like face masks and vaccines. Platforms such as Twitter, YouTube, Instagram and Facebook then sometimes removed, closed or restricted these messages and the accounts that spread them.
This government interference has been criticized by conservative Americans and Republican politicians as ‘censorship’. They have long complained that “Big Tech” would give progressive views more room, including after then-Republican President Donald Trump was banned from many platforms in January 2021 because of the Capitol storming and his persistent lies about alleged fraud in the 2020 presidential election.
Orwellian
District Judge Terry Doughty ruled in a case brought by the (Republican) justice ministers of Louisiana and Missouri. In it, they complain that the FBI and departments at the State Department and Homeland Security held “hundreds of meetings” with tech companies about “disinformation.” They then removed not only messages about health rules and the origin of the virus, but also about election fraud or the controversial content of a laptop belonging to presidential son Hunter Biden.
The judge published his verdict on Independence Day
The Constitution’s First Amendment, which gives citizens wide freedom of expression, would be violated with government-mandated moderation, the complainants argued. Doughty echoes that line of reasoning in his 155-page verdict, published on the day the country celebrated Independence Day. The Trump-nominated magistrate calls the Biden administration’s efforts in 2021 to counter online disinformation about corona “a federal censorship enterprise”.
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Doughty sees “an almost dystopian scenario” in the evidence presented, he writes. “In the pandemic, perhaps best described as one of widespread doubt and uncertainty, the U.S. government appears to have taken on a role akin to the Orwellian “Ministry of Truth.”
The Federal Ministry of Justice denied during the trial that messages were removed under pressure from the government. The media companies would have been made aware of their responsibility to help protect public health. The court is likely to appeal the verdict.