The Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito postponed for a week the entry into force of the restrictions on contact between the government and social networking sites, established by a lower courts decision which found the Biden Administration guilty of violating the First Amendment by pressuring tech companies to censor speech on issues such as covid and electoral fraud.
Although the restrictive measures will continue to come into force next week, they will do so at 11:59 on Friday instead of Monday. The judge's brief text also gives the plaintiffs, the attorney generals of Louisiana and Missouri and a group of social media users, until Wednesday to respond.
Alito v. Missouri Biden by Santiago Adolfo Ospital on Scribd
SCOTUS responded in this way to the presentation made by the Department of Justice, which had alleged that limiting contact with social networks would "impose grave and irreparable harms on the government and the public." The DOJ asked for more time to prepare an appeal against the court decision.
Under the injunction, the Surgeon General, the White House Press Secretary, and many other senior presidential aides risk contempt if their public statements on matters of policy cross the ill-defined lines drawn by the Fifth Circuit.
In July, U.S. Magistrate Judge, Terry A. Doughty, ruled that the attorney generals of Missouri and Louisiana "produced evidence of a massive effort by the defendants, from the White House to federal agencies, to suppress speech based on its content."
The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, following a government appeal, eased the limitations on contact between the administration and companies that own social networks. But he agreed with Doughty that the leaders "likely violated the First Amendment" by pressuring social networks to censor content they considered controversial.
