The Justice Department asked a federal judge to lift his temporary injunction, announced last week, banning the federal government from trying to suppress fee speech in social media.
But the judge wouldn’t budge on Monday.
The White House and the executive agencies under its control have coordinated with social media platforms for three years to eliminate social media posts and accounts that dispute the official government narrative.
Last week’s injunction came with a warning from Louisiana U.S. District Court Judge Terry Doughty, who said that the plaintiffs — the attorneys general of Louisiana and Missouri — have a strong case and are likely to win at trial.
Doughty said that the states have standing to sue the federal government, and he highlighted specific cases of federal censorship that appear particularly egregious, such as when the White House pressured Facebook and Twitter to remove an “anti-COVID-19 vaccine tweet” by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and an instance where Fox News host Tucker Carlson questioned the science behind Covid vaccines.
According to Doughty, the CDC was regularly sending Facebook lists of Covid misinformation for removal. The topics removed included any “medically debatable topics” about the survival rate of for those contracting Covid and the efficacy and side effects of vaccines.
Doughty also pointed out how the story about Hunter Biden’s laptop was suppressed on social media in the days leading up to the 2020 election. The Democrats, who were not yet in control of the White House, labeled it “Russian disinformation.” As it turns out, Hunter Biden has now started cutting deals with the Department of Justice.
