Victory For Free Speech in Louisiana

Louisiana and Missouri secure federal consent decree with the Trump administration, barring the federal government from using Biden-era coercion tactics to force social media companies into censoring the speech of the American people. 

In 2022, Louisiana and Missouri filed a federal lawsuit against the Biden administration for pressuring major social media companies to censor speech and content on COVID-19, elections, and more.

George Orwell wrote 1984 as a warning against tyranny. He never intended it to be used as a how-to guide by the federal government. Yet our case uncovered over 20,000 pages of documents highlighting an extensive censorship campaign stemming directly from the President of the United States and his administration.

Louisiana took the case all the way to the United States Supreme Court. A majority of the Court found a lack of standing to sue. But, as Justices Alito, Thomas, and Gorsuch, and Chief Judge Doughty, said, “This case involves ... 'a far-reaching and widespread censorship campaign' conducted by high-ranking federal officials against Americans who expressed certain disfavored views about COVID–19 on social media.” That was "blatantly unconstitutional," they wrote.

This new consent decree ends this litigation and gives Louisiana the power to enforce this decree against the federal government.

According to the decree, "the Surgeon General, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) (“Enjoined Defendants”), and their employees and agents, shall take no actions, formal or informal, directly or indirectly—except as authorized by the Constitution, statute, judicial order, or regulation—to threaten Social-Media Companies with some form of punishment (i.e., an adverse legal, regulatory, or economic government sanction) unless they remove, delete, suppress, or reduce, including through altering their algorithms, posted social-media content containing protected free speech. Nor shall Enjoined Defendants unilaterally direct or veto social media content moderation decisions of Social Media Companies."

"Shadow bans, throttling, and blocking information such as the Hunter Biden laptop were a common occurrence. One of the darkest moments in the history of the First Amendment is over. I’d like to thank President Trump and his administration for defending the Constitution and ending this assault on free speech," said Attorney General Murrill.