The Supreme Court put a hold Friday on lower court rulings that had ordered the White House to stop pressuring social media companies to censor content the administration disagreed with.
The justices said they would speed the case to their docket, but said in the meantime that the lower court’s order against the White House, FBI and other federal agencies will be stayed.
“Government censorship of private speech is antithetical to our democratic form of government, and therefore today’s decision is highly disturbing,” wrote Justice Alito.They said social media companies blocked or limited the visibility of their posts at the behest of federal government officials. Among the messages targeted were questions about the origins of the coronavirus, challenges to pandemic lockdown policies, the authenticity of Hunter Biden’s laptop and claims of election fraud.
U.S. District Judge Terry A. Doughty found the government had a remarkable success rate in getting the social media companies to cooperate. He called it a “widespread censorship campaign” and he ordered a halt to all sorts of communications between officials and the companies. They narrowed his injunction to apply only to the White House, CDC, FBI and Homeland Security’s cybersecurity agency, and limited the prohibited conduct to attempts to coerce the companies.
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