A federal judge has made a major freedom of speech decision by blocking Biden administration officials from intervening with social media companies and forcing censorship, citing a violation of the First Amendment as the reasoning.
The judge, US District Court Judge Terry Doughty, passed the ruling on Tuesday, barring members of the Biden administration from contacting social media companies. The ruling barred certain agencies and individuals from contacting companies, including, but not limited to, the Department of Health and Human Services, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and many more.
The ruling shuts down any potential interference from these individuals and agencies, barring them completely from contacting social media firms with the intent of limiting or discouraging the use of the First Amendment.
The massive 155-page ruling, with seven pages of just agencies and names, is a massive win for anti-censorship groups and organizations. The ruling seemed to specifically target the activities of the government during the COVID pandemic, with Doughty himself mentioning so in his decision.
“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,’” he wrote, referencing George Orwell's popular novel, 1984.
The ruling also took extra note of how most, if not all, of the ideas and beliefs that were suppressed by the government and social media companies fell on the right end of the political spectrum.
“This targeted suppression of conservative ideas is a perfect example of viewpoint discrimination of political speech,” Doughty wrote. “American citizens have the right to engage in free debate about the significant issues affecting the country … the evidence produced thus far depicts an almost dystopian scenario.”
He did note that it wasn’t all conservative speech, adding how current presidential candidate and Democrat Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was silenced for questioning vaccines during the pandemic madness.
The White House is already considering its options to overwrite the ruling, with White House officials already speaking to the New York Post.
“This Administration has promoted responsible actions to protect public health, safety, and security when confronted by challenges like a deadly pandemic and foreign attacks on our elections,” the official said. “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.”
Regardless of the challenge, the decision will go a long way in ensuring no interference in the upcoming 2024 election, something many people called into question in the last presidential election. The ruling should make democracy-killing interference more or less impossible and go a long way to ensure the Biden administration won’t be putting its grubby hands on what people read and see.
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