© The Free Thought ProjectUS President Joe Biden
In its 75-page ruling, the appeals court panel, made up of two George W. Bush nominees and one Trump nominee, said that President Biden, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the FBI and the surgeon general cannot "coerce" social media platforms to remove content it deems problematic.
However, in its ruling, the court threw out language from a Louisiana judge in July who had ruled that the government could not contact social media platforms to urge them to take content down.
Under the new ruling, the administration has 10 days to seek a Supreme Court review.
The ruling stems from a Louisiana lawsuit that accuses the Biden administration of threatening platforms like X, formerly Twitter, and Facebook, with antitrust lawsuits or changes to federal law that protect their liability and of silencing conservative voices.
The lawsuit was filed by the states of Missouri and Louisiana, a conservative website owner, and four people opposed to the administration's COVID-19 policy.
According to the Washington Post, the ruling said:
"The administration coerced the platforms to make their moderation decisions by way of intimidating messages and threats of adverse consequences" and "significantly encouraged the platforms' decisions by commandeering their decision-making processes, both in violation of the First Amendment."Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry called the ruling a "major win against censorship." He wrote on X, formerly Twitter:
The Fifth Circuit also called U.S. District Court Judge Terry A. Doughty's injunction "overbroad," because it prohibited the administration from "engaging in legal conduct." Doughty was nominated by Trump. It added:
"Nine of the preliminary injunction's ten prohibitions risk doing just that. Moreover, many of the provisions are duplicative of each other and thus unnecessary."The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency and the State Department were removed from the order.
A White House official spokesperson told the Washington 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. 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."Fox News Digital has reached out to the White House for comment.
Reader Comments
Canadians like to pretend that we have a constitution but what we have is a monarchy. Remember that Canada started out as a business venture owned by the crown of england. It is still that and nothing more.
"The declaration outlines the ways in which legal authorities — legislatures, governments, public health officials, professional regulators, administrative bodies and public institutions — have restricted Canadians’ liberties during the COVID-19 pandemic. They have done so shrewdly, to attempt to remain inside the strict letter of the law and to avoid triggering protections in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Over the past year and a half, legal challenges to lockdowns and quarantines have mostly failed in the courts, whose decisions have largely embraced governments’ COVID narratives."
Yes that was a great news story for sure. Glad there are some really sound minds still. Covid was in some respects great, because it showed the despots of the WEF etc hand in play, which can hopefully lead to the great awakening !
The ONLY time you will get any semblance of justice is with 12 of your peers, its all contract law with
judgesadmistrators.complete bastarding of our common (and inherent) law.