Some feds suspend meetings with social media after court ban on pressuring them to censor

A federal judge's ban on several forms of contact among the White House, federal agencies and social media companies – which he said likely prompted unconstitutional censorship of "conservative-leaning free speech" – has sent at least one of them scrambling and another rambling.

The State Department halted its monthly meetings with Facebook "pending further guidance" the day after U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty's preliminary injunction and 155-page memorandum explaining it, a Facebook employee told The Washington Post.

They were scheduled to discuss "2024 election preparations and hacking threats," the employee said, wondering whether the Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), which played a crucial role in systematizing private takedown requests, would also cancel its planned meetings.

The State Department and its Global Engagement Center, known for funding and promoting anti-populist internet games abroad, sent Just the News identical responses saying the center "postponed a meeting with [Facebook owner] Meta" Wednesday intended "to focus on information sharing to counter foreign disinformation overseas."

"I wonder what goes on at the 'regular Wednesday meeting,'" Twitter owner Elon Musk posted, almost certainly referring to Facebook owner Mark Zuckerberg.

Just the News contacted the White House and every agency named in Doughty's injunction to learn how it would affect their meetings and communications with social media companies.

The White House and the Justice Department acknowledged receipt of the query but did not answer. Except for the State Department, the others didn't respond.

The Justice Department on Wednesday filed a notice of appeal to Doughty's injunction to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, who is named in Doughty's injunction, said the same day, "We certainly disagree" with the ruling and repeatedly deferred to the department to evaluate "options."

The department told Just the News it expects to request a stay of the ruling "expeditiously."

Jean-Pierre said it was not "possible … from here" to estimate the "frequency of contacts" among officials and social media companies, but "we are going to continue to promote responsible actions to protect public health, safety, and security when confronted by challenges like a deadly pandemic and foreign attacks on our election."

Social media platforms, while private, have a "critical responsibility to take action or to take account" of their "effects" on Americans and "act accordingly," she said.

(Among the alleged targeted content, according to Doughty: parodies of officials and "negative posts about the economy" and "President Biden.")

The press secretary didn't respond to Doughty's finding that the case, if proven, "arguably involves the most massive attack against free speech in United States’ history" or answer how the White House might change its social-media relations with the COVID pandemic fading.

Some of the censored online content is what had been deemed misinformation about COVID-19, elections and Hunter Biden's laptop.

What the public health establishment considers COVID "misinformation" has occasionally changed. 

Science reported this week that "long vax" is gaining "wider acceptance among doctors and scientists," referring to COVID vaccine-induced symptoms such as small fiber neuropathy and  postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome that resemble biologically elusive long COVID.

The FDA's vaccines oversight chief, Peter Marks, expressed concern about "the sensational headline" that could result from taking long vax seriously while acknowledging "we can't rule out rare cases." 

His German counterpart Karl Lauterbach previously said the Ministry of Health was hoping to organize funding for long-vax studies, Science reported, contrary to American regulators' resistance to systematically studying post-vaccination conditions as opposed to passively receiving reports.

The evidence basis for long COVID itself has come under increased scrutiny, with research correlating "low physical activity" and "loneliness" among adolescents and young adults and chronic mask-wearing with similar symptoms. 

Slate recently reviewed research correlating long COVID with mental illness such as depression, and it previously questioned how common or severe the purported condition is, noting its near-absence from disability claims after a splurge of approved claims in spring 2020.

Doughty's order prohibited a large swath of federal entities and specifically named officials, both high-profile and behind the scenes, from meeting with social media companies or emailing or texting them even to encourage limiting the spread of lawful content, much less "threatening, pressuring, or coercing" them to remove it.

They are prohibited from flagging First Amendment-protected content for possible "removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction," as well as "following up" and "requesting content reports" to see how companies responded, or even notifying them to "Be on the Lookout," whose BOLO acronym appeared frequently in communications disclosed in the litigation.

The feds also may not engage in "switch boarding" or similar work with private misinformation cops, including but not limited to the Election Integrity Partnership, Virality Project and Stanford Internet Observatory, for the same purposes, Doughty said.

Covered officials include Homeland Secretary Alejandro Mayorka, CISA Director Jen Easterly, Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, FBI Special Agent Elvis Chan and Jean-Pierre among many other White House and agency figures.

The Justice Department as a whole is named but not specific officials.

Dr. Anthony Fauci's temporary replacement leading the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Hugh Auchincloss; GEC's acting Director Daniel Kimmage; and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Carol Crawford and Kate Galatas, Census Bureau's Jennifer Shopkorn and White House's Dori Salcido – all communications officials – were among lesser-known officials covered.

Several entities and officials were excluded from the injunction, including the Food and Drug Administration, the Commerce and Treasury departments, the U.S. Election Assistance Commission and the short-lived Disinformation Governance Board and ex, sing-songy Director Nina Jankowicz, who is currently suing Fox News for defamation.

Like the Supreme Court's allowance for colleges to constitutionally consider race in admissions if "concretely tied to a quality of character or unique ability" of the applicant, Doughty's injunction provides exceptions that federal entities are likely poring over.

They can still notify platforms of "criminal activity or criminal conspiracies … national security threats, extortion, or other threats … criminal efforts to suppress voting, to provide illegal campaign contributions, of cyber-attacks against election infrastructure, or foreign attempts to influence elections," as well as "postings intending to mislead voters about voting requirements and procedures."

Two exceptions appear broad enough to allow a wide range of communications: "threats that threaten the public safety or security of the United States" and efforts to "detect, prevent, or mitigate malicious cyber activity." Neither is defined.