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The
notice of appeal filed on Wednesday signals the government's
plan to ask the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in
New Orleans to review the ruling in a lawsuit challenging the
Biden administration's efforts to persuade social media
companies to police posts it considered disinformation.
The lawsuit, brought by Republican attorneys general in
Louisiana and Missouri, alleged that U.S. government officials
went too far in efforts to encourage social media companies to
address posts they worried could contribute to vaccine hesitancy
during the COVID-19 pandemic or upend elections.
The injunction issued on Tuesday barred government agencies like
the Department of Health and Human Services and the FBI from
talking to 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" under the Free Speech Clause of the First
Amendment to the Constitution.
Judge Terry Doughty, in an order filed with the U.S. District
Court for the Western District of Louisiana, made some
exceptions for communications between government officials and
the companies, including to warn about risks to national
security and about criminal activity.
His order marked a win for Republicans who sued the Biden
administration, saying it was using the coronavirus health
crisis and the threat of misinformation as an excuse to curb
views that disagreed with the government.
U.S. officials have said they were aiming to tamp down
misinformation about COVID vaccines to curb preventable deaths.
(Reporting by Tyler Clifford and Sharon Bernstein; Editing by
Eric Beech and Lisa Shumaker)
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