DOJ ASKS COURT TO LIFT SOCIAL MEDIA LIMITS

The Justice Department asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to pause a novel and sweeping ruling from a federal appeals court barring many kinds of contacts between administration officials and social media platforms.

The case, a major test of the role of the First Amendment in the Internet era, will require the court to consider when government efforts to limit the spread of misinformation amount to censorship of constitutionally protected speech.

A unanimous threejudge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit ruled last week that officials from the White House, the surgeon general’s office, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the FBI had most likely crossed constitutional lines in their bid to persuade platforms to take down posts about the coronavirus pandemic, claims of election fraud and Hunter Biden’s laptop.

The panel, in an unsigned opinion, said the officials had become excessively entangled with the platforms or used threats to spur them to act. The panel entered an injunction forbidding many officials to coerce or significantly encourage social media companies to remove content protected by the First Amendment.

In asking the Supreme Court to intervene, Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar said the government was entitled to press its views, both in public and in private.

“A central dimension of presidential power is the use of the office’s bully pulpit to seek to persuade Americans — and American companies — to act in ways that the president believes would advance the public interest,” she wrote.