On Saturday, July 8, 2023 at 11:22:10 AM UTC-4,
[email protected] wrote:
Washington
CNN
—
A federal judge’s order Tuesday prohibiting various Biden administration agencies and officials from communicating with social media companies about certain content thrust an under-the-radar lawsuit into the national spotlight.
The preliminary injunction issued by US District Judge Terry Doughty in Louisiana ordered a slew of federal agencies and more than a dozen top officials not to communicate with social media companies about taking down “content containing protected
free speech” that’s posted on the platforms.
Doughty outlined 10 actions that agencies and officials are prohibited from taking, including “specifically flagging content or posts on social-media platforms and/or forwarding such to social-media companies urging, encouraging, pressuring, or
inducing in any manner for removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech.”
The order applies to communication with social media companies that “include Facebook/Meta, Twitter, YouTube/Google, WhatsApp, Instagram, WeChat, TikTok,” as well as a number of other online platforms.
The agencies and officials the order applies to include the Department of Health and Human Services, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Justice Department and the FBI.
It also applies to more than a dozen top administration official, such as US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
’1984’ parallels
In a 155-page memo supporting his order, Doughty said the plaintiffs in the case “are likely to succeed on the merits in establishing that the Government has used its power to silence the opposition.”
“Opposition to COVID-19 vaccines; opposition to COVID-19 masking and lockdowns; opposition to the lab-leak theory of COVID-19; opposition to the validity of the 2020 election … is a perfect example of viewpoint discrimination of political speech,”
he wrote. “American citizens have the right to engage in free debate about the significant issues affecting the country.”
And in an extraordinary comparison to George Orwell’s novel “1984,” Doughty invoked the book when he said “the evidence produced thus far depicts an almost dystopian scenario.”
“During the COVID-19 pandemic, a period perhaps best characterized by widespread doubt and uncertainty, the United States Government seems to have assumed a role similar to an Orwellian ‘Ministry of Truth,’” he wrote, adding in a footnote that
the fictional agency is “responsible for altering historical records and disseminating propaganda to manipulate and control public perception.”
More Biden corruption exposed.
Hmmm... 1984. Is that just the environment that Biden was trying to create, or the last time Biden had a cogent thought?
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