The attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana have shored up their motion for a preliminary injunction with 362 pages of facts explaining to the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana just how the federal government allegedly used tech companies to censor dissenting voices on social media.
In State of Missouri ex rel. Schmitt, et al. v. Joseph R. Biden, Jr., et al plaintiffs accuse President Joe Biden’s administration of numerous First Amendment violations.
“Federal officials from the White House and multiple agencies use pressure, threats, coercion, cajoling, collusion, demands, and trickery and deceit to induce social-media platforms to censor speakers and viewpoints on social media that the federal officials disfavor,” the March 6 pleading states. “The proof of this sprawling federal “Censorship Enterprise” is voluminous and overwhelming.”
U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana Judge Terry Doughty is presiding over the case, which alleges YouTube, Meta, and Twitter acted as an arm of the government in suppressing opposing voices.
“One of the most egregious is the emails of a guy named Rob Flaherty who was the White House Director of Digital Media Strategy,” said Jenin Younes, litigation counsel with the New Civil Liberties Alliance. “He was constantly in touch with the tech companies, berating them and telling them they weren’t doing enough to sensor misinformation especially about the vaccines.”
The federal officials deposed by the plaintiffs include FBI Agent Elvis Chan, former White House press secretary Jen Psaki and former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Dr. Anthony Fauci. The next step of the litigation is a hearing on the Supplemental Preliminary Injunction, the Proposed Findings of Fact, and potentially the defendants' Motion to Dismiss however a date has not yet been set.
“While Dr. Fauci was engaging in private email conversations with other scientists who were saying it looks like the lab leak theory might be the most accurate hypothesis, he was basically commissioning scientific papers to discredit the theory and publicly saying that it's not a credible theory,” Younes told the St. Louis Record.
As previously reported in the St. Louis Record, NCLA joined its plaintiffs in the lawsuit in August 2022. Their plaintiffs include epidemiologists Dr. Jayanta Bhattacharya, and Dr. Martin Kulldorff as well as Dr. Aaron Kheriaty and Jill Hines who have all been censored for expressing views about COVID restrictions that opposed the government’s position.
"We need courts to recognize that this government cannot be coercing or colluding with tech companies or tricking them into censoring people for expressing certain views," Younes added. "If that's permitted, we may as well do away with the First Amendment in the digital age. It's completely incompatible with the principles of the First Amendment."