US court eases restrictions on govt's contacts with social media companies

A federal appeals court in the United States on Friday (September 8) eased restrictions on the Joe Biden administration's contacts with social media companies. According to a report by the news agency Reuters, the court ruled that the White House, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and top health officials may not "coerce or significantly encourage" social media companies to remove content the Biden administration considers misinformation, including about the coronavirus pandemic.

However, the panel of the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals narrowed much of an injunction issued by a Louisiana judge that restricted the administration from communicating with such companies.

The injunction has been placed on hold for 10 days as the Biden administration could seek the Supreme Court's review. The administration argued that it asked social media companies to take down posts it considered to be harmful misinformation, but never forced them to do so.

As per the report, the lower court judge found out that American officials illegally coerced Meta Platforms' Facebook, Alphabet's YouTube, and X (formerly known as Twitter), into censoring posts related to Covid and allegations of election fraud.

On Friday, the appeals court panel said that while officials had an interest in engaging with social media companies about misinformation, the government was not allowed to advance these interests to the extent that it engages in viewpoint suppression.

The court also said that the narrower injunction applied to the White House, the surgeon general, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the FBI, but would no longer apply to other federal officials covered by the lower court order.

"Social media platforms' content-moderation decisions must be theirs and theirs alone," the court added and barred officials at those agencies from coercing or significantly encouraging social media companies to remove content.

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