Appeals court blocks ruling banning communication between Biden Administration and social media

A panel of judges at the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans granted the Biden Administration's request to stay the order prohibiting senior government officials from communicating with executives of social networking companies.

On Friday, a federal appeals court granted the Department of Justice's (DOJ) request for a "temporary administrative stay" of U.S. District Judge Terry A. Doughty's ruling.

According to the panel of judges, the stay of the order will remain in effect at least until the case is referred to another appellate panel. However, he did not elaborate on the rationale for the decision.

The DOJ had already asked Doughty to suspend its order because it was overly broad and threatened to affect the government's obligations to protect national security. According to some officials, the court order could undermine efforts to safeguard the 2024 elections, among other things.

However, the district judge defended his ruling and rejected the DOJ's request, asserting that his order was not really that broad since it seeks to prevent the defendants from doing things they have no legal right to do, such as "contacting social media companies for the purpose of urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner, the removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech posted on social media platforms."

It should be recalled that the judge's order came after prosecutors in Missouri and Louisiana filed a lawsuit accusing the government of overreaching by pressuring social networking companies to censor Americans.