Federal Appeals Court Upholds Modified Injunction in Missouri v. Biden, Blocking White House and Agencies from Influencing Social Media Censorship
In the major case of Missouri v. Biden, a federal appeals court upheld a modified injunction that prohibits the White House and other agencies from pressuring social media sites to restrict American people.
For people who resist online censorship, this is a victory. The entire FBI is still forbidden from asking social media companies for censorship under the new injunction. The CDC, the White House press secretary, and several other members of the Biden administration who put pressure on IT companies during the COVID-19 outbreak are likewise prohibited from doing so.
This decision has a significant effect. The Fifth Circuit justices emphasized that in 2020 and 2022, the FBI flagged content, which resulted in social media sites removing it 50% of the time. The plaintiffs in the Missouri v. Biden lawsuit, as well as through investigations by the House Judiciary Committee and disclosures from the Twitter Files, have extensively revealed the FBI’s key role in what some have referred to as the “censorship-industrial complex.”
The exclusion of CISA from this modified injunction, however, has drawn criticism. Former State Department employee and chairman of the Foundation for Freedom Online, a group that tracks online restrictions, Mike Benz, praised the decision but criticized CISA’s absence as “completely unreasonable.”
During the 2020 election, CISA worked closely with the contentious “Election Integrity Partnership” (EIP), flagging posts via the EIP’s dashboard that were subsequently forwarded to social media corporations for possible restriction. The Breitbart News, Fox News, New York Post, and Epoch Times were among the news organizations targeted by the EIP, as were the social media pages of well-known conservatives like Charlie Kirk, Tom Fitton, Jack Posobiec, Mark Levin, James O’Keefe, and Sean Hannity, among others.
Despite their cooperation, Brandon Wales, executive director of CISA, has refuted claims that they are restricting Americans. Wales asserted that “CISA has never engaged in speech censorship or facilitated censorship in any way; such claims are categorically false.” He also emphasized that CISA’s activities are directed at lowering the possibility of misinformation by disseminating knowledge about election security and literacy as well as elevating the opinions of reliable election authorities.
Missouri v. Biden is the name of the case, and it is docketed under No. 23-30445 at the Fifth Circuit of the United States Court of Appeals.