Social Media Prohibition!
US Judge Blocks Biden Officials From Contacting Social Media Sites
By SCARS Editorial Team – Society of Citizens Against Relationship Scams Inc.
A Major Blow To The Biden Administration’s Attempts To Control Social Media
The Attorney Generals for Louisiana and Missouri have filed a lawsuit alleging that the federal government is unlawfully censoring conservative viewpoints in violation of the First Amendment.
A federal judge, Terry A. Doughty, has ruled that several Biden administration officials are prohibited from contacting social media companies regarding the moderation of posts protected by the First Amendment.
In a 155-page memorandum ruling (see below,) Judge Doughty expressed the belief that the plaintiffs have a strong likelihood of proving that government officials are deliberately targeting and suppressing “millions of protected free speech postings by American citizens” in violation of the law!
The injunction prevents individuals such as DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) leader Jen Easterly, and FBI Foreign Influence Task Force leader Laura Dehmlow, as well as employees of these agencies and others, from engaging with or requesting action from social media companies regarding posts protected by the First Amendment.
Exceptions to the injunction include:
- Posts related to criminal activity or criminal conspiracies.
- National security threats.
- Threats to election security.
- Permissible public government speech promoting government policies or expressing views on matters of public concern.
- Public safety threats.
- Efforts to detect, prevent, or mitigate malicious cyber activity.
The individuals named in the lawsuit are also prohibited from collaborating with academic groups focused on social media, such as the Election Integrity Partnership, the Virality Project, and the Stanford Internet Observatory.”
As the Washington Post reports: Republican attorneys general in Louisiana and Missouri suing President Joe Biden, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the CDC, the Department of Homeland Security, and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, claim that “starting in 2017 — four years before Biden was president — officials within the government began laying the groundwork for a ‘systemic and systematic campaign’ to control speech on social media.”
The New York Times cites Jameel Jaffer, the executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, responding to the ruling saying, “It can’t be that the government violates the First Amendment simply by engaging with the platforms about their content-moderation decisions and policies… If that’s what the court is saying here, it’s a pretty radical proposition that isn’t supported by the case law.”
The New York Times has obtained a statement from an unidentified White House official stating, “Our consistent view remains that social media platforms have a critical responsibility to take account of the effects their platforms are having on the American people, but make independent choices about the information they present,” The official further mentions that the Justice Department is reviewing the court ruling and assessing its subsequent actions.
What the Injunction Prohibits:
- meeting 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 posted on social media platforms;
- specifically flagging content or posts on social media platforms and/or forwarding such to social-media companies urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner for removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech;
- urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner social-media ‘companies to change their guidelines for removing, deleting, suppressing. or reducing content containing protected free speech;
- emailing, calling, sending letters, texting, or engaging in any communication of any kind with social-media companies urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner for removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech;
- collaborating, coordinating, partnering, switchboarding, and/or jointly working with the Election Integrity Partnership, the Virality Project, the Stanford Internet Observatory, or any like project or group for the purpose of urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content posted with social-media ‘companies containing protected free speech;
- threatening, pressuring, or coercing social-media companies in any manner to remove, delete, suppress, or reduce posted content of postings containing protected free speech;
- taking any action such as urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner social-media companies 0 remove, delete, suppress, or reduce posted content protected by the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution;
- following up with social-media companies to determine whether the social-media ‘companies removed, deleted, suppressed, or reduced previous social-media postings containing protected free speech:
- requesting content reports from social-media companies detailing actions taken to remove, delete, suppress, or reduce content containing protected free speech; and
- notifying social-media companies to Be on The Lookout (“BOLO”) for postings containing protected free speech.
‘This Preliminary Injunction precludes said named Defendants, their agents, officers, employees, ‘contractors, and all acting in concert with them from the aforementioned conduct. This Preliminary Injunction also precludes said named Defendants, their agents, officers, employees, and ‘contractors from acting in concert with others who are engaged in said conduct.
What the Injunction Does NOT Prohibit:
It 1s further ordered that the following actions are NOT prohibited by this Preliminary Injunction:
- informing social-media companies of postings involving criminal activity or criminal conspiracies:
- contacting and/or notifying social-media companies of national security threats, extortion, or other threats posted on its platform;
- contacting and/or notifying social-media companies about criminal efforts to suppress voting, to provide illegal campaign contributions, or cyber-attacks against election infrastructure, or foreign attempts to influence elections:
- informing social-media companies of threats that threaten the public safety or security of the United States;
- exercising permissible public government speech promoting government policies or views on matters of public concern:
- informing social-media companies of postings intending to mislead voters about Voting requirements and procedures;
- informing or communicating with social-media companies in an effort to detect, prevent, or mitigate malicious cyber activity:
- communicating with social-media companies about deleting, removing, suppressing, or reducing posts on social media platforms that are not protected free speech by the Free Speech Clause in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.
SCARS Analysis
We believe that overall this is a sound decision to control government overreach.
In the exemptions, it is clear that it does not prohibit normal law enforcement or criminal justice concerns.
Overall we believe that this will help to identify abuses by the United States Government regardless of the party affiliation since neither party should be allowed to strange arm social media companies or collaborate or manipulate what can appear.
We applaud the states that stood up to the federal government to maintain our freedoms.
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Free speech is an important right to uphold. But misinformation is a real problem.