Some Joe Biden officials reportedly tried to contact social media companies in order to ask them to delete posts. In light of this, a US federal judge has blocked these officials from contacting social media companies under the First Amendment.
According to a report by The Verge (via the Washington Post,) some government officials in 2017 started a systematic campaign to control speech on social media. This timeframe is four years before Biden became the president. Republican attorneys general in Louisiana and Missouri are now suing President Joe Biden, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the CDC, the Department of Homeland Security, and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease.
Judge Terry A. Doughty ruled that some federal government officials have targeted “millions of protected free speech postings by American citizens” and tried to suppress them by contacting social media companies. Most objections are reportedly about Covid-19 policies and origins, Biden government policies, and Hunter Biden’s laptop.
“It is quite telling that each example or category of suppressed speech was conservative in nature,” Doughty said. “This targeted suppression of conservative ideas is a perfect example of viewpoint discrimination of political speech. American citizens have the right to engage in free debate about the significant issues affecting the country.”
Biden administration officials are accused of censoring conservatives viewpoints on social media
Jameel Jaffer, the executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, said the government couldn’t violate the First Amendment by just contacting social media and affecting their content moderation policies. He added that this might be a “pretty radical proposition” that’s not supported by the law.
An unnamed White House official also reacted to the ruling, saying that social media platforms make independent choices about the information they present. The official noted that the Justice Department is evaluating the ruling to take further steps.
Social media companies always took criticism for favoring left-wing content and censoring conservative viewpoints. The so-called Twitter Files released following Elon Musk’s takeover confirmed this hypothesis to a large extent. The files revealed that Twitter has intentionally limited the visibility of Republicans’ and right-wing activists’ accounts. This is an apparent violation of the First Amendment.