A federal appeals court on Friday said the Biden administration likely violated the First Amendment in some of its communications with social media companies, but also narrowed a lower court judge’s order on the matter.
The US 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that certain administration officials – namely in the White House, the surgeon general, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation – likely “coerced or significantly encouraged social media platforms to moderate content” in violation of the First Amendment in its efforts to combat Covid-19 disinformation.
But the three-judge panel said the preliminary injunction issued by US District Judge Terry Doughty in July, which ordered some Biden administration agencies and top officials not to communicate with social media companies about certain content, was “both vague and broader than necessary to remedy the Plaintiffs’ injuries, as shown at this preliminary juncture.”
The Biden administration had previously argued in the lawsuit brought by Republican attorneys general claiming unconstitutional censorship that channels with social media companies must stay open so that the federal government can help protect the public from threats to election security, Covid-19 misinformation and other dangers.
In briefs submitted earlier this summer, the administration wrote, “There is a categorical, well-settled distinction between persuasion and coercion,” adding that Doughty had “equated legitimate efforts at persuasion with illicit efforts to coerce.”
The 5th Circuit left in place part of the injunction that barred certain Biden administration officials from “threatening, pressuring, or coercing social-media companies in any manner to remove, delete, suppress, or reduce posted content of postings containing protected free speech.”
“But,” the appeals court said, “those terms could also capture otherwise legal speech. So, the injunction’s language must be furthe
the injunction’s language must be further tailored to exclusively target illegal conduct and provide the officials with additional guidance or instruction on what behavior is prohibited.”
The appeals court reversed several aspects of Doughty’s sweeping order, concluding that those pieces of it risked blocking the federal government “from engaging in legal conduct.”
The 5th circuit left the order, which had been temporarily blocked earlier in the summer, on pause for 10 days so that the case can be appealed to the Supreme Court.
The opinion was handed down jointly by Circuit Judges Edith Clement, Jennifer Walker Elrod and Don Willett – all appointees of Republican presidents.
The conservative appeals court sided with many of the arguments put forward by the plaintiffs, which included private individuals as well Missouri and Louisiana, but also narrowed the injunction’s scope so that it only applied to the White House, the surgeon general, the CDC and the FBI. Doughty had included other agencies in his July order.
在新冠疫情期间，拜登政府扮演起“真理部”的角色，将一切质疑疫苗和政策的声音视为“洪水猛兽”，还要求推特、Facebook等社交媒体配合宣传，将不利于拜登政府的声音定性为谣言。
周五，联邦第五巡回上诉法院判定，拜登政府违反了宪法第一修正案。
本次案件的原告方为密苏里州和路易斯安那州等，被告方为白宫、卫生部部长、疾病控制与预防中心（CDC）和联邦调查局（FBI），这些机构涉嫌强迫或者强烈要求社交媒体平台对涉及新冠疫情的内容进行审核。
实际上早在7月4日，联邦地区法官就已经判定被告败诉，联邦地区法官特里·道蒂 (Terry Doughty) 裁定，拜登政府可能与大型科技公司勾结，在新冠大流行期间审查受保护的言论，并限制拜登政府的数十名官员与社交媒体公司接触。
被告上诉到第五巡回上诉法院。周五，三名法官组成的陪审团再次裁定，拜登政府违反了宪法第一修正案关于言论自由的法律。不过也调整了特里·道蒂法官的裁量内容。
他们在裁决书中写道，拜登政府官员“敦促、鼓励、施压”或“诱导”社交媒体公司删除内容的 10 项条款中的 9 项，认为这些要求并不违反宪法，“直到这样的情况的行为越过了界限，变成了胁迫或重大鼓励。”
上诉法院认为，“禁令的措辞必须进一步调整，专门针对非法行为，并为官员提供有关禁止哪些行为的额外指导或指示”，并修改了一项保留条款的措辞，仅禁止“胁迫或大力鼓励社交媒体公司删除、删除、压制或减少（包括通过改变其算法）发布的包含受保护言论自由的社交媒体内容。”
“这包括但不限于迫使平台采取行动，例如暗示如果不遵守任何要求，将受到某种形式的惩罚，或者监督、指导或以其他方式有意义地控制社交媒体公司”决策过程。”
变动后的限制对象仅为白宫、卫生部长、CDC和FBI，不再适用于其他联邦政府官员。
上诉法院裁决公示期为10天，拜登政府可能会继续上诉到最高法院，让最高法院来裁决是否违反宪法第一修正案。
事实上我们知道，在2020年大选前，社交媒体就与民主党勾结在一起，尤其是《纽约邮报》报道“拜家子”亨特·拜登涉嫌吸毒、酗酒和嫖妓的丑闻后，包括推特和Facebook竟然都把这则新闻标注为谣言，推特甚至还封杀了《纽约邮报》的账户，令人惊诧！