(Casey Harper/The Center Square) – The White House has one week to decide whether it will appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court a recent ruling that the Biden administration overstepped its bounds in working to censor Americans’ social media posts.

The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled late Friday that the White House, FBI, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Surgeon General’s Office may have violated the First Amendment when it coordinated with social media companies to limit posts on topics like COVID-19 and the 2020 election.

Judge Terry Doughty of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana ruled in Louisiana and Missouri v. Biden et al., ordering in an injunction that top Biden officials to stop pressuring social media companies to remove content deemed “misinformation.”

The federal appellate court backed that ruling, albeit more narrowly, pushing back on federal censorship by proxy.

“Social-media platforms’ content-moderation decisions must be theirs and theirs alone,” the court said.

State officials who launched the legal effort said the Biden administration violated the First Amendment.

“This is a significant victory for the American people,” Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry said in a statement after the ruling. “And it confirms what we have said from the very beginning: The federal government is not permitted to engage in viewpoint censorship, no matter your political ideology.”

The White House told the media in a statement Friday that it would review the case and make a decision on whether to appeal to the Supreme Court.

Editor’s Note: Here’s a press release from Landry’s office on Saturday…

Biden Blocked AGAIN: Fifth Circuit Rules in Favor of First Amendment
AG Jeff Landry Wins Injunction Against Federal Censorship Enterprise

NEW ORLEANS, LA – A federal appeals court panel late Friday unanimously affirmed a district court’s injunction preventing the White House, FBI, CDC, and Surgeon General from colluding with Big Tech companies to censor Americans’ protected speech.

“This is a significant victory for the American people,” said Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry. “And it confirms what we have said from the very beginning: the federal government is not permitted to engage in viewpoint censorship, no matter your political ideology.”

In Louisiana and Missouri v. Biden et al., Judge Terry Doughty of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana ordered key Biden officials to stop threatening, pressuring, or coercing social media companies to suppress any content containing protected free speech on their platforms.

The Biden Administration appealed; but yesterday, the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals sided with Attorney General Landry – confirming that “the government is not permitted to use the government-speech doctrine to muffle the expression of disfavored viewpoints.”

“The Biden Administration now has ten days to seek Supreme Court review,” added Attorney General Landry. “But we are determined to bring this to trial so that the victims are vindicated and we can prevent this gross abuse of power from ever happening again, especially in a time of crisis when information is most important.”

Attorney General Landry also noted the following excerpts from the Fifth Circuit’s 74-page ruling:

• “We find the district court did not err in determining that several officials—namely the White House, the Surgeon General, the CDC, and the FBI—likely coerced or significantly encouraged social-media platforms to moderate content, rendering those decisions state actions.  In doing so, the officials likely violated the First Amendment.” – pg. 60-61
• “We do not take our decision today lightly. But, the Supreme Court has rarely been faced with a coordinated campaign of this magnitude orchestrated by federal officials that jeopardized a fundamental aspect of American life. Therefore, the district court was correct in its assessment—“unrelenting pressure” from certain government officials likely “had the intended result of suppressing millions of protected free speech postings by American citizens.” We see no error or abuse of discretion in that finding.” – pg. 61-62

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A copy of the ruling my be found at https://agjefflandry.com/Article/13164