A federal judge said Tuesday that there was “substantial evidence” the federal government was engaged in a massive campaign to censor and control online speech.
District Court Judge Terry Doughty granted a preliminary injunction barring the Biden administration from contact with social media companies for “the purpose of urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner the removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech.”
Included in the injunction are multiple White House officials, including Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and a host of other Biden administration senior officials and staff, as well as the Department of Health and Human Services and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The injunction was granted as part of a lawsuit brought by attorneys general from Missouri and Louisiana along with several individuals who alleged that the Biden administration violated the First Amendment by pressuring social media platforms into censoring viewpoints that did not comport with those of the administration.
The plaintiffs’ allegations in the case mostly concern the censorship and suppression of their viewpoints regarding COVID-19 health directives, including masking and vaccinations, the origins of the pandemic, the Hunter Biden laptop story, and election integrity.
However, Judge Doughty found that the defendants were also allegedly engaged in suppressing free speech about other issues, including gas prices, parody speech, calling the president a liar, climate change, gender, and abortion.
Doughty laid out his justification for granting the preliminary injunction in a 155-page memorandum.
In his ruling granting the injunction, the judge found that the “evidence produced thus far depicts an almost dystopian scenario. During the COVID-19 pandemic, a period perhaps best characterized by widespread doubt and uncertainty, the United States Government seems to have assumed a role similar to an Orwellian’ Ministry of Truth.’”
In George Orwell’s classic novel 1984, a totalitarian government maintains control of the public through a powerful ministry of propaganda called the Ministry of Truth.
“Each United States citizen has the right to decide for himself or herself what is true and what is false. The Government and/or the [Office of the Surgeon General] does not have the right to determine the truth,” said Doughty in his memorandum, explaining how labels such as “misinformation” and “disinformation” were used by the government to suppress alternative viewpoints to those the government supported.
The Justice Department is looking into its options in the case, WFAA reported.
Lawyers for the Biden administration argued that the injunction was essentially an effort to “suppress the speech of federal government officials under the guise of protecting the speech rights of others,” per WFAA.
Doughty allowed several exceptions to his injunction permitting the government to inform social media companies of postings that involve criminal activity, criminal conspiracies, and threats to national security.
Unless altered by either Doughty or a higher court, the preliminary injunction will remain in effect until the case is resolved.
