In a brief blow to the campaign against the Biden administration’s attempts at circumventing First Amendment rights, the Supreme Court has temporarily halted a lower court’s ruling which effectively curtailed the government’s influence over social media censorship. This freeze, initiated on Thursday, September 14th, will hold until September 22.
The initial ruling was levied amidst legal backlash mounted by the Republican attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana, along with a suite of social media users against the administration for what they deemed as coercive tactics that violated First Amendment rights of free speech.
These complaints pivot around evidence that federal officials had aggressively pressured mostly Facebook and Twitter, now X, into suppressing posts it deemed to be “misinformation” about the COVID-19 pandemic and evidence of election fraud in 2020. This claim was upheld by a three-panel judge of the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals.
Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey announced plans to oppose the White House’s Supreme Court appeal. “We are rooting out this censorship enterprise and will hold any wrongdoers accountable,” Bailey added in a statement.
