In a major win for free speech online, the Fifth Circuit upheld part of a massive injunction that bars the Biden regime from coercing Big Tech platforms to censor.
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Friday that the White House, alongside the Surgeon General, “likely” coerced social media platforms to thwart free speech “by way of intimidating messages and threats of adverse consequences.” The ruling delivers a blow to the legacy media’s false assertions surrounding the case, with The New York Times and MSNBC falsely claiming the Biden administration was merely fighting disinformation. Soros-funded site Just Security went as far as implying the facts surrounding the case as conspiratorial.
However, the appeals court concurred with one of the 10 provisions ordered by District of Louisiana Judge Terry A. Doughty, concluding that the White House violated the First Amendment.
“Ultimately, we find the district court did not err in determining that several officials—namely the White House, the Surgeon General, the CDC, and the FBI—likely coerced or significantly encouraged social-media, platforms to moderate content, rendering those decisions state actions,” the appeals court wrote in a 74-page ruling. “In doing so, the officials likely violated the First Amendment.” The court order marks a direct rebuke of the false narrative touted by the legacy media’s wilful disregard for the damning allegations unveiled by the bombshell lawsuit.
“This is a major victory for free speech,” said MRC Vice President Dan Schneider. “The fact that the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals said that the White House likely violated the First Amendment means they will now think twice before coercing social media platforms to do their bidding ahead of the 2024 election.”
Citing anti-free speech zealots, The New York Times falsely told its readers on July 4 that the collusion between the White House and Big Tech did not violate the First Amendment. The following day, The Times ran with the government’s talking point that social media companies acted independently — despite the lengthy evidence cited by Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey and Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry.
The Fifth Circuit had none of it and explicitly barred the White House from future violations of the First Amendment. “Defendants, and their employees and agents, shall take no actions, formal or informal, directly or indirectly, to coerce or significantly encourage social-media companies to remove, delete, suppress, or reduce, including through altering their algorithms, posted social-media content containing protected free speech,” the new order reads.
The media’s lunacy did not stop there. MSNBC opinion writer/editor Zeeshan Aleem echoed The Times’s remarks in a mind-baffling op-ed on July 7. “It’s not inherently a violation of the First Amendment for the government to direct critical speech at private actors,” Aleem claimed before recycling the same anti-free speech talking point. Even the activists at the Soros-funded fringe site Just Security chimed in, falsely calling what a federal appeals court ruled to be fact a “debunked conspiracy theory.”
The lawsuit cites a bombshell MRC Free Speech America report using data from MRC’s exclusive CensorTrack.org database.
Read the full order here.