A civil liberties group and Republican lawmakers are celebrating Tuesday’s historic victory preventing a repeat of the Biden administration’s policing of conservative online speech.
Lawyers for the New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA) have been fighting, even after losing at the U.S. Supreme Court, to stop federal officials from de-emphasizing and even pulling social media posts by conservatives on such matters as COVID and the 2020 election — including people who suffered medical complications after getting the COVID-19 vaccine.
NCLA reached a settlement agreement and consent decree to end the lawsuit.
The legal battle stems from the landmark lawsuit Missouri v. Biden, which exposed how the Biden administration pushed social media platforms to take down posts deemed as misinformation from people who were speaking out about the Wuhan coronavirus.
Senator Eric Schmitt, who initiated the lawsuit during his time as the state’s attorney general, says the Biden administration brazenly colluded with Big Tech to silence Missouri families, and others around the nation, who were posting about the pandemic, the border and the 2020 election.
“They tried to turn Facebook, X, YouTube and the rest into their private speech police, labeling dissent ‘misinformation’ while they pushed their narrative on the American people,” Schmitt said.
The 10-year consent decree acts as a permanent injunction. It targets the surgeon general, the CDC, and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). The agreement strictly forbids the agencies from threatening social media companies with punishments for what amounts to protected speech under the First Amendment.
“This is the first real, operational restraint on the federal censorship machine,” Schmitt said. “It locks in the First Amendment principle we fought for: modern technology doesn’t erase your rights, and government labels don’t strip speech of protection. Missouri struck first — and Missouri won big.”
NCLA Senior Litigation Counsel John Vecchione says the case began with suspicion but blossomed into fact. He says the revelations led to congressional hearings and an executive order demanding an end to the censorship.
“Freedom of speech has been powerfully preserved by our clients, past and present, who initiated this suit,” Vecchione said.
