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(Trends Wide) — The US Department of Justice is appealing a judge’s order that prohibited various agencies and officials in the Biden administration from communicating with social media companies about certain content.
The Justice Department notified a court Wednesday that it plans to appeal the preliminary injunction, issued Tuesday by Trump-appointed US District Judge Terry Doughty, to the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, possibly be the most conservative appellate court in the country.
Trends Wide previously reported that Doughty’s injunction orders a host of federal agencies and more than a dozen top officials not to contact social media companies to remove “content containing protected free speech” that is posted on the platforms.
Doughty’s order applies to agencies including the Department of Health and Human Services, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Department of Justice and the FBI, as well as officials who work for the General Directorate of Health and its director, Vivek Murthy, as well as the White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre.
While the court order notes that the government can still contact businesses as part of efforts to curb illegal activity and address threats to national security, agencies and officials are prohibited from “specifically flagging content or posts on social media platforms.” social”.
The injunction adds that the government is also prohibited from forwarding content or posts to “social media companies urging, encouraging, coercing, or inducing in any way to remove, remove, suppress, or reduce content that contains protected freedom of expression.”
The social media companies specified in the lawsuit include Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, WhatsApp, TikTok and WeChat, among other platforms.
The order is part of a lawsuit filed by Republican Missouri and Louisiana attorneys general in 2022 that accuses the Biden administration of effectively silencing conservatives by relying on social media companies to suppress online misinformation about COVID-19. .
Following the order, a White House official on Tuesday defended the administration’s communication with social media companies, saying it “has promoted responsible actions to protect public health and safety when faced with challenges.”
“Our consistent view remains that social media platforms have a critical responsibility to consider the effects their platforms have on the American people, but make independent decisions about the information they present,” the White House official said.
— Trends Wide’s Vanessa Yurkevich contributed to this report.
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