Jack Davis ~ The Western Journal
A federal court judge on Tuesday barred multiple federal departments and federal officials from contacting social media companies to remove content the judge said is protected by the First Amendment.
The order from U.S. District Court Judge Terry Doughty of Louisiana bans numerous federal agencies — including the departments of Justice, Homeland Security and State and senior officials including Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra and White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre — from telling social media companies to remove posts.
The order said that everyone in the almost-three-page-long list of names and agencies is banned from “meeting with social-media companies for the purpose of urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner the removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech posted on social media platforms.”
They were also barred from “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,” said Doughty, who was nominated to the bench by then-President Donald Trump in 2017.
His order also banned those parties from “collaborating, coordinating, partnering, switchboarding, and/or jointly working with the Election Integrity Partnership, the Virality Project, the Stanford Internet Observatory, or any like project or group for the purpose of urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content posted with social-media companies containing protected free speech.”