Biden requests SCOTUS to block limits on collaboration in social media censorship case

The Biden administration made a request Thursday afternoon asking for the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) to temporarily halt a lower court directive that puts limits on how it is permitted to correspond with social media companies over rules surrounding content moderation. 



US Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar reportedly informed the justices that should the "unprecedented" order be permitted to stand, it would result in a Louisiana district judge being assigned the responsibility of monitoring the executive branch's communications with social media companies.

Prelogar cautioned that Biden's request for the justices to put US District Judge Terry Doughty's order on hold will have "startling" implications, including putting "unprecedented limits on the ability of the President’s closest aides to use the bully pulpit to address matters of public concern, on the FBI's ability to address threats to the Nation’s security, and on the CDC’s ability to relay public-health information at platforms' request."

Justice Samuel Alito, who is tasked with taking emergency requests from the US Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, determined the lower court's order will be on hold until the day's end on Friday, Sept. 22 to allow justices the time to make a determination on the request. Alito also said plaintiffs must file a response to the government's application by 4 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 20.

The referenced lower court decision came July 4 from US District Judge Terry Doughty, who said in regard to Missouri v. Biden that "the United States Government seems to have assumed a role similar to an Orwellian 'Ministry of Truth.'"

Doughty's ruling to limit the federal government's ability to discuss content moderation with social media companies applied to the White House, the Surgeon General, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, and the Department of State.

Conclusions about government censorship reached in Missouri v. Biden largely corroborate information leaked from the Twitter Files, which showed that government agencies such as the FBI had corresponded with Twitter to censor anything it considered to be "misinformation" off of the platform.