The Biden administration had called a lower court injunction “unprecedented” for restricting officials’ ability to raise concerns about problematic social media content on issues like Covid-19.

The Supreme Court on Friday blocked in full a lower court ruling that would have curbed the Biden administration’s ability to communicate with social media companies about contentious content on such issues as Covid-19.

The decision in a short unsigned order puts on hold a Louisiana-based judge’s ruling in July that specific agencies and officials should be barred from meeting with companies to discuss whether certain content should be stifled.

The Supreme Court also agreed to immediately take up the government’s appeal, meaning it will hear arguments and issue a ruling on the merits in its current term, which runs until the end of June.

Three conservative justices noted that they would have denied the application: Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch.

  • AutoTL;DRBEnglish
    1•1 year ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:

    The decision in a short unsigned order puts on hold a Louisiana-based judge’s ruling in July that specific agencies and officials should be barred from meeting with companies to discuss whether certain content should be stifled.

    "At this time in the history of our country, what the court has done, I fear, will be seen by some as giving the government a green light to use heavy-handed tactics to skew the presentation of views on the medium that increasingly dominates the dissemination of news.

    We look forward to dismantling Joe Biden’s vast censorship enterprise at the nation’s highest court," Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey said in a statement Friday.

    Judge Terry Doughty, who was appointed by Trump, barred officials from “communication of any kind with social-media companies urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner the removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech.”

    But the appeals court still required the White House, the FBI and top health officials not to “coerce or significantly encourage” social media companies to remove content the Biden administration considers misinformation.

    Prelogar argued that the original injunction is “vastly overbroad,” saying “it covers thousands of federal officers and employees, and it applies to communications with and about all social media platforms” regarding content moderation on such topics as national security and criminal matters.

    The original article contains 644 words, the summary contains 221 words. Saved 66%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!