Judge Terry Doughty, a Trump-appointed judge in the Western Louisiana District, ordered the Biden Administration to stop contacting social media companies about misinformation it identified about a number of topics, saying such contact is an attempt by the government to limit criticism, the New York Times reports.
Doughty mentioned the FBI and the Department of Health and Human Services–which oversees the CDC and FDA–specifically in issuing the ban on any contact for “the purpose of urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner the removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech.”
The ruling–which will be appealed–cuts off any communication on subjects other than providing information on crimes, national security threats or foreign attempts to influence elections. A common whine among conservatives is that The Government ordered social media companies to remove posts contrary to its authoritarian message–like the election wasn’t stolen or that vaccines work–even though Congressional testimony shows agencies used customer service processes available to verified users of the platforms.