Federal Judge Terry A. Doughty has ordered several arms of President Joe Biden’s government, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Department of Health and Human Services (DHSS), to immediately cease communications with social media platforms for “the purpose of urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner the removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech.”
The Louisiana-based judge issued the ruling after Republican attorneys-general for the state, alongside Missouri, complained the federal government was using its influence to censor dissidents.
“If the allegations made by plaintiffs are true, the present case arguably involves the most massive attack against free speech in United States’ history,” said Judge Doughty, adding that they were “likely to succeed on the merits in establishing that the government has used its power to silence the opposition.”
Public records requests recently revealed that the federal government collaborated with foreign-born ‘Never Trump’ billionaire Pierre Omidyar to establish a so-called Misinformation Reporting Portal (MiRP) for social media. This was used by a “coalition of liberal-leaning research groups” including the Democratic National Committee to to flag predominantly conservative accounts, with 61 percent of reports being actioned.
