Appeals court pauses order blocking Biden administration from communicating with social media companies

By Dan Berman, CNN

Washington (CNN) — A federal appeals court on Friday temporarily blocked a controversial order that would have prevented the Biden administration from communicating with social media companies.

Last week, US District Judge Terry Doughty in Louisiana ordered a slew of federal agencies and more than a dozen top government officials to not communicate with social media companies about taking down “content containing protected free speech” that’s posted on the platforms.

The order is part of a lawsuit brought by the Missouri and Louisiana attorneys general in 2022 that accuses the Biden administration of effectively silencing conservatives by pressuring the private social media companies in its effort to moderate online misinformation about Covid-19.

The Justice Department has appealed Doughty’s ruling, and the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday said the appeal should be expedited. In the interim, however, the court said the order will be blocked.

Following Doughty’s ruling, US officials raised concerns that the move could have a “chilling effect” on how the federal government and states address election-related disinformation just as the 2024 election cycle gets underway.

Legal and security experts told CNN that it could disrupt the routine, close cooperation between government officials and social media companies that developed following Russia’s efforts to meddle in the 2016 US elections.

The ruling applied to agencies including 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 FBI, as well as officials such as US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy and White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.

However, as legal challenges play out, other agencies not named in the litigation have begun to rethink their engagement with social media companies as well, including the State Department, which canceled a routine meeting on election security with Facebook earlier this month.

Doughty’s injunction noted that the government can still communicate with the companies as part of efforts to curb illegal activity and address national security threats. But it prohibited agencies and officials from “specifically flagging content or posts on social-media platforms” and from forwarding them to social media companies to urge that they be removed or deleted.

The social media companies that were specified in the lawsuit include Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, WhatsApp, TikTok, and WeChat, among other platforms.

This story has been updated with additional information.

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CNN’s Devan Cole, Evan Perez, Brian Fung and Sean Lyngaas contributed to this reporting.