Biden agency ‘likely’ violated free speech by working with Big Tech to censor election content: court

A federal court ordered an injunction on a top agency within the Department of Homeland Security after finding that it likely violated the First Amendment by coordinating with social media companies to effectively censor 'election-related speech.

three-judge panel determined in the court order that CISA was the 'primary facilitator' of the FBI’s interactions with the social-media platforms and worked in close coordination with the FBI to push the platforms to change their moderation policies to cover 'hack-and-leak' content. The opinion describes CISA’s 'switchboarding' operations as 'merely relaying flagged social-media posts from state and local election officials to the platforms.

Thus, when the platforms acted to censor CISA-switchboarded content, they did not do so independently. Rather, the platforms’ censorship decisions were made under policies that CISA has pressured them into adopting and based on CISA’s determination of the veracity of the flagged information. Thus, CISA likely significantly encouraged the platforms’ content-moderation decisions and thereby violated the First Amendment,' the judges said.

The attorneys general deposed several officials, including Dr. Anthony Fauci and FBI Special Agent Elvis Chan. On July 4, federal Judge Terry A. Doughty of the Fifth Circuit ordered the first injunction, which prevents White House officials and federal agencies from meeting with tech companies about social media censorship, arguing that such actions likely violated the First Amendment.

Source: Law Daily Report (lawdailyreport.net)

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